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Copyright If_ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSITS 


















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Cist of Contributors: 


Richard Humerle 
Rev. Robert fi. Benson 
florence $. Barrett 
George Barton 
tnarv 6. Bonesteel 
Bertha Bondy 
Rev. David Beam, $.3. 
Eetia Bardin Bugg 
Ratherine €. Conway 
George lit. H. Cain 
mrs. Trancis Chadwick 
IttaryC. Crowley 
Rev. 3. €. Coitus, $.3. 
mice Dease 
Eleanor C. Donnelly 
Ella Loraine Dorsey 
ltlaurice T. Egan 
Rev. Trancis Tinn, $.3* 
m. E. Trancis 
Rev. R. P. Garrold, $.3. 
Rlicc R. 111. Garland 
3uliet B. Gallaher 
Cheo. Gift 
3erome Barte 
Cahir Beal y 
Katharine Z. Binkson 
R. B. Sheridan Rnowles 
Grace Reon 
Ran Riaxton 
Cady JImabel Kerr 
may Cowe 
Trances maitland 


Shiela mahon 
mary E. mannlx 
Sophie maude 
3eunie may 
Clara mulholland 
Rosa mulholland 
mary O’Connor Ittahoney 
m. C. martin 
Lilian mack 
Jfnna Blanche mcGill 
Dora tynan O’ mahony 
$. m. O’ maiiey 
Rev. m. Ott, O.S.B. 
3oscphine Portuondo 
Edith m. Power 
George Ralston 
maud Regan 
Christian Reid 
magdalen Rock 
rn. T. Dixon-Roulet 
Benrietta Dana Skinner 
Elsa Schmidt 
Rev. 3ohn Calbot Smith 
Uery Rev. P. H. Sheehan 
Anna Z. Sadlier 
P. 6. Smyth 
m. m. Stratner 
R. P. Stow 

Rev. B. $. Spalding, S.3. 
marion Hmes taggart 
mary Z. Ulaggaman 
Bonor Ulalsh 




























Heat i5>tnriea 

bg % 

Ifforemoat (Eatljolir 
Aurora 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 


MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, LL.D 


IN TEN VOLUMES 


VOLUME V, 


New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 


PUBLISHERS OF 
benziger’s MAGAZINE 


PRINTERS TO THB 
HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE 




















Copyright, 1910, by Benziger Brothers 


t t 

V*- f I 


«' 


© CL A 2 7 3 7 8 6 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Last Word. By Rev. John Talbot Smith . 7 

Patricia, the South Easter and Fate. By M. C. 

Martin.19 

The Child with the Gold Cross. By Jerome 

Harte.31 

The Peregrinating Present. By Mary F. Nixon- 

Roulet ....... 53 

The Allies of Destiny. By Marion Ames 

Taggart ....... 69 

Mary’s Prayer. By Rev. Michael Ott, O.S.B. . 81 

The Captain’s Christmas. By Mary T. Wagga- 
. man ........ 99 

My Sister’s Secret. By Karl Klaxton . . 113 

The Folly of Anastasia Moylan. By Maud 

Regan ....... 135 

Not a New Woman. By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet 159 
An Idealist. By Marion Ames Taggart . .171 

Tio Antonio’s Old Sofa. By Mary E. Mannix . 183 

A Glimpse of the Purple. By Alice Dease . 193 

Larry O’Neill. By Magdalen Rock . . .201 

The Sound of a Laugh. By Anna T. Sadlier . 215 

A Knight-at-Arms. By Anna Blanche McGill . 225 

The Ghost of Ned Malone. By Maud Regan . 235 




The Last Word 


BY REV. JOHN TALBOT SMITH 

The priest hurried into the hospital and began 
to mount the stairs to the accident ward, know¬ 
ing just what to do and where to go, for he had 
traveled the sad path frequently. He merely 
looked at the man who accosted him at the foot 
of the stairs, shook his head in response to the 
man’s gesture, and would have passed on but that 
the stranger seized him imperatively by the arm. 

“This is a hurry call,” said the priest sharply, 
“and I can not attend to you until I have seen the 
injured party.” 

“He. is my son,” said the man as sharply, “and 
I wish you to know that he is not a Catholic. He 
is a Protestant, and I do not wish you to render 
him any service—religious, I mean.” 

“Why was I sent for then?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Then I must find out. You will excuse me, 
but there must be no delay.” 

“Still you will please to remember that he is my 
son. ...” 


8 


THE LAST WORD 


The priest went on up the stairs and the man 
followed him into the ward, where a young fellow 
lay on a cot, unconscious, the death-sweat on his 
forehead, a froth on his blue lips, his body trem¬ 
bling slightly at times. He was dead to all hu¬ 
man sights forever. The priest saw a lovely 
young face, delicate, manly, lovable, which re¬ 
sembled the face of the stranger. 

“He is my son,” said the man. “His name is 
Arthur Lovell, and I repeat that he is not a Cath- 
olic and that I do not wish any Catholic cere¬ 
monies on him.” 

“Why was I sent for?” said the priest to the 
nurse, who took a card from the table and read 
this line written by the ambulance surgeon: 

“His last words were: ‘Get me a priest/ ” 

“Can you explain that?” said the priest, point¬ 
ing to the sentence. 

“No, I can’t. Is there any need? Isn’t it 
enough to say that I am his father and that he is 
not a Catholic?” 

“If you can not explain, then I must act pre¬ 
cisely as if you were not here. It is idle for you 
to talk about it. You say that you are his father. 
How do I know that you are? We are strangers. 
This boy can not answer for you or himself.” He 


REV. JOHN TALBOT SMITH 


9 


turned to the nurse. “Make everything ready.” 
And he began his preparations for administering 
the last rites. The stranger watched him with 
some bitterness. 

“Really, I consider this whole affair an imposi¬ 
tion,” he said. “You are taking a most unfair 
advantage of a sad accident. I protest. If you 
wait I can bring testimony.” 

He repeated his words over and over, while the 
nurse placed a stand by the cot, put a lighted 
candle on the stand, some holy water, a little cruci¬ 
fix, and other necessaries. The priest addressed a 
last word to the man who called himself the boy’s 
father. 

“Please be reasonable,” he said. “In ten min¬ 
utes your son will be dead, as you can see. By the 
time your witnesses arrived there would be noth¬ 
ing more to do for him. He is passing to his 
judgment. If you have any faith kneel and pray 
for his soul. He asked for a priest as his mind 
failed him. The priest is here and will do for 
him just what he does for every stricken mortal 
who asks for him. If his last words did not mean 
anything, if he is your son and a Protestant, then 
the last rites will do him no harm. If his last word 
meant what it usually means, then I am only re- 


10 


TEE LAST WORD 


specting his wishes, as you yourself would respect 
them under ordinary circumstances.” 

“But if you make him a Catholic,” said the man, 
“we lose our right to him, to his body; we may not 
bury him as we please, as he was brought up. . . .” 

“If he is your son, you may do with him as you 
please. This is a public hospital. Your claim to 
him no one will dispute.” 

Mr. Lovell hesitated and the two men looked at 
each other, the priest calm and respectful, the 
father irritated and suspicious. In the pause the 
dying youth murmured a single word w'hich 
reached the ear of the priest. 

“Listen to him yourself,” said he to the father, 
who bent his head close to the purple lips of his 
son and caught the word again. 

“A priest!” 

It was a sigh rather than a word, but the father 
heard it clearly. It seemed spoken for him, rising 
from the depths of that last anguish as if to re¬ 
proach him. All at once his sorrow rushed upon 
him, that he was about to lose his child, and with 
a sign to the priest he fell upon his knees and cov¬ 
ered his face with his hands. The priest baptized 
the dying youth, absolved him, anointed him, 
gave him the last indulgence, conditionally of 


REV. JOHN TALBOT SMITH 


11 


course; and the two men knelt on either side of 
the cot, praying, while the nurse moved about min¬ 
istering to the patient until the light faded from 
the beautiful young fac<r forever. Father Grannat 
lingered a few moments to gaze on the fine fea¬ 
tures, which in their beauty seemed a most elo¬ 
quent protest against death. 

"If his character was like his face,” he said to 
the father, “he must have been a very fine fellow.” 

“There was always about him something dis¬ 
tinctive,” the father answered. “Yet he had no 
particular cleverness, he did not like study, he in¬ 
sisted on going to work instead of college; but he 
was good, gentlemanly, considerate, and gave his 
mother and me no trouble. I don’t know . . . 
how we shall . . . live without him. . . .” His 
voice faded into sobs and the priest sighed. 

“Yet at this moment his happiness must be su¬ 
pernal, if what I suspect is true, that he has been 
a Catholic at heart some time. Why should he call 
for the priest otherwise ? And God has been good 
to him in this: that he has been baptized and ab¬ 
solved and anointed. And according to our teach¬ 
ing he must be now in the presence of God, unut¬ 
terably happy, and praying for you that you may 
bear the great sorrow of his absence with patience 


12 


THE LAST WORD 


and resignation. I would like to learn why he 
called for a priest. It was his last word.” 

“It is a mystery to me/’ said the father. “We 
are not church members, but we belong to the 
Presbyterian communion. I never heard anything 
about Arthur in connection with Catholics. We 
have no Catholic friends. You will pardon my 
rudeness at first, but I did not know just what 
would be the consequences.” 

“Don’t mention it. You had your duty and I 
had mine. Let us try to find out the details, and 
perhaps the mystery may be cleared by in¬ 
quiry.” 

The ambulance surgeon described the accident 
by which the young man lost his life. 

In the warehouse where he acted as clerk the 
younger men used to assemble at the lunch hour on 
the top story and amuse themselves in various 
ways. Pursued by a comrade Arthur darted sud- 

i 

denly into the open shaft of the elevator, suppos¬ 
ing it to be a room, and fell the four stories. He 
spoke only a few times after they picked him up, 
and the ambulance surgeon reported the words at 
the hospital, which resulted in the appearance of 
the priest. The two men spoke a few moments 
with the surgeon in the vestibule, when a young 


REV. JOHN TALBOT SMITH 


13 


man approached them and asked if they could tell 
him the condition of Arthur Lovell. 

“He is dead/’ said the priest. “Are you a 
friend of his ?” 

“I worked in the same place with him, and we 
lived near each other in Sunnyside.” 

“Are you a Catholic ?” 

“Yes, Father.” 

“Then perhaps you can tell us—this is hi3 
father—why he asked for a priest at the last mo¬ 
ment. I supposed him a Catholic and gave him 
all the Sacraments; but his father tells me he was 
not a Catholic. Can you explain this?” 

“I think I can, Father.” 

Thereupon they all went into the nearest parlor 
and the young man with much questioning told 
the story as he knew it. He had been for ten 
years the chum of the dead boy, and both belonged 
to a little circle of youngsters who played ball to¬ 
gether, went to the same church and the same 
school, and started in to work in the city about 
the same period. Arthur Lovell was the odd one 
in the crowd, being a Protestant, or rather noth¬ 
ing in particular; but he had a secret liking for 
all things Catholic and went to church with the 
rest. He would have gone to confession when the 


14 


THE LAST WORD 


others went but that his condition barred him. 
Frequently he told his comrades that as soon as 
he came of age he would join the Church. He 
was afraid that his father and mother would take 
such action bitterly at present, and he often spoke 
with regret over the delay, for his piety had a 
more fervent tinge than that of his comrades. He 
rebuked them at times for their lack of apprecia¬ 
tion, and when their faith seemed to grow cool his 
protest shamed them into better practise. Yet, 
of late years he had said little about his purposed 
conversion, and they had supposed the matter 
shelved. Of all the group he was the best in every 
way, the kindest, most generous; although not the 
leader he was the favorite; and they had all fore¬ 
seen the day when his luck would land him in the 
very highest place, never thinking it would come 
to him so roughly. The boy’s voice broke and his 
tears fell, and the father acknowledged to himself 
that this strange youth knew more of his boy’s 
life and thought than father or mother. The 
priest said: 

“Go up to the accident ward and look at your 
chum. He died a Catholic, as he wished and as 
you prayed. He is at this moment in heaven, and 
you can thank God for your share in his happi- 


REV. JOHN TALBOT SMITH 


15 


ness; for if you and the other boys had not been 
faithful Catholics, letting him see the beauty of 
the faith to which he was drawn, he might have 
forgotten.” 

“Thank you, Father,” said the young man, who 
left the room, not seeming quite to comprehend 
what the priest meant by his kindly words. 

“Now you can see what the boy meant by calling 
for a priest,” he said to Mr. Lovell. “No one 
could look at the face of your son, even as I saw it 
for the first time in the anguish of death, and fail 
to discern the spirit within. That boy turned to 
religion as if by instinct. You had none of it in 
your house, and he found it among his compan¬ 
ions. I don’t know which to admire more: the 
boy who found religion almost without help, or the 
boys who unconsciously guided him to their own. 
Praised be God for having given him his reward. 
He is dead to this world, but his soul lives in 
eternal glory.” 

The stricken father said no more. His sorrow 
had invaded him with the minute and beautiful de¬ 
tails of the story told by Arthur’s chum. He had 
loved his boy, had taken pride in his fine appear¬ 
ance and sound nature, but he had never known 
the real beauty of his soul; and while he felt proud 


16 


THE LAST WORD 


of the affectionate words of the priest and the 
yonng man, a pang seized him that the stranger 
had come nearer to his own flesh and blood than 
he had with all his love and opportunity. In the 
two days of mourning that followed, his wife and 
he came to the conclusion that Arthur should have 
all the rites of the religion of his heart, and that 
his innocent body should rest in a Catholic church¬ 
yard. It was all they could do for him, who had 
concealed his most beautiful thoughts from them 
in fear of their displeasure. To have him still 
with them, to have had his confidence even, what 
would they not have done? So Father Grannat 
sang the Mass of requiem and uttered the last 
solemn words of grief, of consolation and hope to 
the mourners. Six young men acted as pall-bear- 
ers, from that group which had illustrated for 
Arthur Lovell the practical working of religious 
principle. The father studied them one by one as 
they came to his house: clear-eyed, handsome, in¬ 
telligent, fine-mannered boys, with the light of 
their baptism shining in their faces. He had not 
so much as set eyes on them before, but he said to 
himself that hereafter they were to be his special 
care. Father Grannat complimented them on 
their dead comrade and their own faith. 


REV. JOHN TALBOT SMITH 


17 


“Had you been mere sinners this dear boy 
would have fled from you, disgusted. Had you 
been merely indifferent his religious feeling would 
have found no development among you. Because 
you were faithful to your religion, exact in keep¬ 
ing the commandments, warm in your faith, his 
mind and his heart together found content and de¬ 
light in the truth of Christ. Be sure now that he 
remembers you with a generous love before the 
throne of God.” 

A year later Mr. Lovell called on Father Gran- 
nat to tell him the last phase of their tragedy. 
The entire family had joined the household of 
the faith, overcome by the pathos of the last words 
of Arthur, in which the aspirations of years, the 
beauty of his soul, were summed up in a single 
phrase, which his dying lips uttered when all 
other words were gone from him. 












Patricia, the South Easter, 

and Fate 

BY M. C. MARTIN 

A raging south easter was having things its 
own way in the streets of the city of Cape 
Town. Patricia Murphy, stenographer, was re¬ 
turning home from her office work shortly after 
five o’clock, and the fury of the wind was so great 
that she was obliged to take shelter under a cov¬ 
ered veranda until a particularly bad gust had 
passed on. Her small white cloth cap was secured 
over head and face by a thick gauze veil tied under 
her chin. A neat tweed frock gave little ad¬ 
vantage to the wind; nevertheless, like the rest 
of the wayfarers that day, she looked somewhat 
disheveled. The streets were comparatively quiet, 
and in the shelter of the veranda, by means of a 
pocket mirror, Patricia proceeded to rearrange her 
veil. 

Suddenly there rolled almost to her feet a 
trophy of the gale, in the shape of a man’s black 
silk hat. By a deft movement she stopped its 


20 PATRICIA , THE SOUTH EASTER , AWD FATE 

further progress and took it up. Inside the crown 
she read: “Marcus Gower,” written in a man’s 
hand. 

“Some old gentleman is minus a hat,” she said 
half aloud, turning round the hat. It was per¬ 
fectly new but dusty. “Rather a pit) r the owner 
can not get it back.” And she pictured what she 
had frequently seen from her second-story office 
window, the futile efforts of the middle-aged and 
elderly gentlemen who wore “belltoppers” when 
the wind was in a frolic. Patricia put the hat 
into a corner out of the way of the wind, and 
raised her veil to settle her hair preparatory to 
venturing again into the wind. 

As she did so a young man came stumbling, 
hatless and breathless, into her sheltered corner. 
He drew himself up suddenly on seeing her. Pa¬ 
tricia, looking at him, felt a wild desire to laugh, 
which, however, she controlled. Giving a final and 
satisfied pat to her back hair she eyed him gravely. 
His indignation at the treatment of the wind was 
apparent. His short curly fair hair was blown up 
on end, his eyes were half blinded by the gravel, 
his frock coat was covered with dust, and yet he 
clutched handsomely at his lost dignity. 

“I—I beg your pardon,” he began, pulling him- 


M. C. MARTIN 


21 


self together and meeting Patricia’s twinkling 
eyes bravely. “My hat?” 

“Is this yours?” Patricia held out the hat to 
him. With it she restored his good temper. 

“Ah, thanks, I believe it is. So much obliged.” 
He bowed. 

“Not at all,” said Patricia, returning his bow, 
and gathering up her skirts preparatory to ventur¬ 
ing homeward. Marcus Gower stood and watched 
her until she turned (with some difficulty against 
the wind) the next corner. “Nice girl, that,” he 
said, and hailed a passing cab, determined to 
give no more chances to the playful south 
easter. 

“English, by his accent,” said Patricia to herself 
as she went to her boarding-house, “and starched, 
and his first experience of a south easter. The 
idea of wearing a silk hat in such a wind.” Then 
she laughed freely at the remembrance of the fig¬ 
ure he cut and his expression. Next day she re¬ 
counted the incident to Sophie Brand, her com¬ 
panion in the lawyer’s office where she was em¬ 
ployed, and brought the ever-ready laughter to 
that young woman’s lips by her account of “New- 
come John.” 

Next day the weather changed to heat, such as 


22 PATRICIA, THE SOUTH EASTER, AND FATE 


usually follows the south east wind in the summer 
season. Patricia went from her boarding-house 
without the big gauze veil that usually did duty 
in the wind. But the afternoon found the wind 
as strong as ever, and Patricia set forth on the re¬ 
turn journey with many misgivings as to the fate 
of her hat. “If the wind gets into my hair, it’s 
all up with me,” she said to Sophie. “It’s that 
kind of hair—Irish, you know, and full of con¬ 
trariness.” 

“Never mind, Pat dear,” Sophie said comfort¬ 
ingly. “You know you look enchanting with those 
black curls all about your face. I only wish my 
hair curled naturally.” 

“Oh, it’s little you know about the worry it is 
to me, Sophie. Fll go home without a hat, and be 
worse off than ‘New-come John’ himself,” she 
said ruefully. Sophie lent her all the hat pins 
she could spare, and thus fortified against mis¬ 
chance she faced the wind again. 

“It’s a string round my hat and under my chin 
I’d like to have,” she said, laughing, as they 
stood on the office steps, “like the farmer men at 
home in the old country.” 

“Safe home,” cried Sophie, as they parted on 
their different routes. 


M. C. MARTIN 


23 


The hat pins held their own against the wind 
bravely until Patricia came to a corner. There her 
hat was lifted clean off her head, and she herself 
was swept along by the rush of the wind as though 
she had been a bit of paper. The air was full of 
fine gravel from the streets, the force of the wind 
was terrific. Patricia’s hairpins went one by one, 
and in vain endeavor to keep her hair out of her 
eyes, her small hand-bag went, too. She caromed 
into some person standing close to the corner and 
felt herself taken by the arm and drawn inside a 
doorway. 

Pushing back her hair, she looked up into the 
face of “New-come John.” 

“Pardon me,” he said gravely, “but this time 
the wind was getting the better of you. I stopped 
your hat. Here it is.” 

“Oh!” said Patricia, “this is terrible! I thought 
I knew what the south easter could do, but I’ve 
learned something fresh to-day.” 

She gathered up her hair deftly, and took her 
hat from him. 

“Thank you,” she said with a little laugh. “We 
are quits now.” 

Marcus was watching the long curling coils of 
dark hair being twisted into place. 


24 PATRICIA , TEE SOUTH EASTER , AA r D FATE 

“You ought to go home in a cab,” he said. 
“May I call one for you ?” 

“Thank you,” she said again. “It is the only 
safe way, I suppose, though a cab was overturned 
by the wind last week.” 

They were standing in the hallway of a private 
house, and Patricia wondered if he lived there. 
Later she learned that this amazing young man 
had calmly taken possession of that hall and knew 
no one in the house. They only stood there about 
five minutes. How it had happened that Marcus 
Gower chanced to be there she never found out. 
But indeed it was pure accident, for he was not 
thinking of the merry-eyed girl who had captured 
his hat when he himself had seen a sailor hat 
bounding gayly down the city street. He had 
taken the precaution of securing his soft felt hat 
by a string to his coat button. Presently a cab 
came into view and he hailed it. Patricia got in 
and having thanked her unknown friend drove off. 

Marcus Gower walked on until he met another 
cab, into which he got and drove to the railway 
station, whence he took the train to Rosebank. 
He was staying with his friend Theodore Norris, 
having arrived from England but two days before 
the episode of his silk hat. 


M. C. MARTIN 


25 


That episode and the one that had just hap¬ 
pened seemed somehow racy to this very British 
Englishman. There was a breeziness and absence 
of convention about them that appeared at one 
with the Cape as far as he had seen it. Yet the 
slight but quite unmistakable accent of the girl 
was Irish; so were her complexion, hair, and eyes. 
Now that he thought about them, they were de¬ 
cidedly Irish. He did not mention the incident to 
Mr. and Mrs. Norris: not because it was too 
trivial, but because, in spite of his five feet eleven 
and his English stiffness, he was shy. 

The next day was Sunday, and he expressed his 
intention of going to church in St. Mary’s Cathe¬ 
dral. Mr. and Mrs. Norris went to St. Michael’s, 
Bondebosch, and Marcus took the train to the city. 
Wild horses would not have dragged the reason 
from him, but there was a definite motive in his 
going. Nor was he disappointed, for to the pew 
in front of him there came a tall, slender girl, all 
in white, dark-haired, blue-eyed, and with no dis¬ 
figuring gauze veil. 

Patricia was very devout. Nevertheless, she 
knew quite well that behind her knelt “New-come 
John.” He had a prayer-book about two inches 
square, out of which he read attentively. He 


26 PATRICIA, THE SOUTH EASTER, AND FATE 


wore a pink rosebud and fern in the buttonhole 
of his immaculate coat. His silk hat was laid 
carefully, crown downward, on the seat beside 
him. All this Patricia saw, and then turned her 
attention to her devotions. The thought of the 
“hoy she’d left behind her” in Old Ireland and 
who had died last year was very prominent in 
her mind to-day. Poor Terence! He had died of 
consumption and his last messages were still vivid. 
So it was a very serious young woman who walked 
out of the Cathedral after Mass. Marcus came to 
the holy-water font from the opposite exit as she 
dipped her white-gloved finger in. Had he timed 
the moment (which he could not possibly have 
done, for the crowd), he could not have succeeded 
better. But Patricia’s aloof air struck a chill 
over him. She looked, not at him, but through 
him. Her eyes were still moist from unshed tears. 
She was feeling very lonely and homesick, and the 
joy in this man’s face found no answer in hers. 

But Christine Norris had asked her out to Sum- 
mervale at Rosebank for the afternoon. That at 
least would prevent her spending the golden hours 
of the summer day “pining for what was not.” 

Marcus returned to Rosebank suffering still 
from that chill. Then he roused himself. “You’re 


M. C. MARTIN 


27 


an idiot,” he said to himself viciously. “A fellow 
twenty-six years old behaving like a kid of six¬ 
teen ! There’s no use spoiling your holiday for a 
girl you’ll probably not see again.” He spent the 
early part of the afternoon discussing politics with 
Theodore Norris, as the best antidote to the morn¬ 
ing’s folly. 

Patricia, all unknown to him, arrived and was 
taken to Mrs. Norris’s boudoir for a confidential 
chat. “Theodore is out in the grounds somewhere 
with a young Englishman, a friend of his who is 
paying a flying visit to the Cape, so we shall have 
a quiet hour or two before they come in.” 

Christine, quick to read her friend’s face, saw 
the cloud she tried to hide, and soon the two were 
deep in confidences. But Patricia did not speak 
of “New-come John.” Instead she spoke of Ter¬ 
ence. She was trying to be very loyal to Terence’s 
memory, and she spoke with as much bitterness as 
her sunny nature contained about the English in 
general. 

“I never think of you as English, Christine,” 
she said. “There’s none of the Sassenach in you. 
You are Irish though you don’t know it.” 

Christine laughed. “I wondered what had 
made you, as you would say yourself, so ram- 


28 PATRICIA, THE SOUTH EASTER, AND FATE 

pagious to-day about the English. Now I know 
you have met some new English person.” 

“I have and I haven’t,” said Patricia, and then 
she laughed and her melancholy mood fled. To¬ 
gether she and Christine went down into the gar¬ 
den, where afternoon tea was being prepared un¬ 
der the trees. 

Patricia was busy cutting cake when Mr. Nor¬ 
ris’s voice and another strangely familiar fell on 
her ear. 

“It’s—if it isn't —New-come John!” she ex¬ 
claimed to herself, and kept her back resolutely 
turned until she could control her face. 

“We have come for tea, Miss Patricia,” said 
Mr. Norris, “and will you let me introduce Mr. 
Gower ?” 

Patricia faced them and her eyes were brim¬ 
ming with laughter. Marcus, his amazement writ¬ 
ten on his face, took the hand she proffered and 
it was he who blushed. 

“Have you two met before?” asked Mr. Norris, 
looking from one to the other with a smile. 

“Twice,” said Marcus; “in a south easter,” and 
then his glance met Patricia’s and they both 
laughed. 

Christine, that evening, when Marcus took 


M. C. MARTIN 


29 


Patricia home, said sagely, “Pm rather glad that 
Terence O’Malley died. I think Marcus Gower 
will bury him deeper than Patricia expects.” 

Theodore looked mystified. Christine would 
not explain further. And Theodore was the only 
person surprised when some two months later 
Patricia and Marcus announced their engagement. 

“Sure I had to take him, to be consistent with 
my politics,” said Patricia. “I advocate Home 
Rule for Ireland, and Marcus said he wanted to 
give Home Rule to the only bit of Ireland he 
wished to have, and that’s myself.” 









The Child with the Gold 



BY JEROME HARTE 


New York with its mad hustle and bustle had 
attracted Minnie Maddigan to it, as it has at¬ 
tracted so many poor, beautiful, and ambitious 
ones. She had a talent: every one who knew her 
said that she wrote unusually clever stories, and a 
few magazine editors had praised her compositions 
when, as rarely, they accepted one or, as more 
often happened, they found occasion to return one 
“with thanks.” 

But the magazine stories did not seem to pay 
her enough to keep body and soul together, and 
there were reasons why Minnie felt the urgent 
need of earning more for herself and her little 
girl. Then, too, circumstances seemed to force 
her toward New York. 

Real life stories are sad, and Minnie’s was real. 
When her little girl was two years old her hus¬ 
band was taken terribly ill with typhoid. They 
had not been married long enough to be able to 


32 THE CHILD WITH THE GOLD CROSS 


set much aside for a rainy day. Minnie’s father 
took them home to live with him as soon as young 
Charles Maddigan could be moved, and as soon as 
Minnie had told the old man with frank tears 
how seriously in want her little family was. Al¬ 
though the three were most unwelcome to Min¬ 
nie’s new young stepmother, they had a safe 
shelter for the time being. 

It was all hard on proud young Maddigan and 
his wife. Minnie sent out her stories in fear and 
trembling, and did not tell any one when they 
came back. One or two were accepted through a 
newspaper friend and the money bought medicine. 

When, finally, Maddigan was up, his strength 
came back very slowly. The doctor did not long 
keep silent about his fears. 

“It’s his lungs,” said the old physician to Min¬ 
nie. “They have never been strong and now they 
are diseased. He can not live here. His firm 
has promised me to give him a position in their 
Denver store, and he must go at once if he is 
ever to get better. A year there ought to cure 
him, if he will go now.” 

“And anyway,” said Minnie’s father, “Minnie 
and the baby can stay with me until he is earning 
enough to keep them in Denver. For I have often 


JEROME HARTE 


33 


heard that a man, once his lungs are affected, can 
live longest in a place like Colorado, and Charlie 
Maddigan is too fine a fellow to die young !” 

That day, seeming to come like a word from 
heaven, was a letter and check from a New York 
newspaper on which worked the husband of a 
girl who had gone to school with Minnie in the 
village. He had tried to help Minnie since her 
husband’s illness. The letter said that there was 
a vacancy on the woman’s page of a certain news¬ 
paper in the metropolis and its editor had agreed 
to give it to Minnie. 

“It is a small place and it doesn’t pay much,” 
said the letter, “but it will give you a chance to 
‘make good’ and get in.” 

“I am going to take baby and go to New York,” 
Minnie told her father, “but Charlie must not 
know. If he did he would not go to Denver, and 
he must go there or he’ll die! You can fix it for 
me, can’t you, daddy dear ? I love to be with you, 
but with Charlie gone, I should be very unhappy 
with the new wife. You mustn’t think I am blam¬ 
ing you, father, or wishing that you did not have 
her. It is better for you to have a companion, 
and she is good to you, but stepmothers and 
daughters are never over-fond of one another and 


34 THE CHILD WITH THE GOLD CROSS 


I am afraid that she would soon resent my being 
here and make you unhappy. Besides, it is not 
right that you should have to support me. It is 
a splendid chance and I mean to go. Charlie 
need not know. All his letters can be sent here 
and you will forward them to me. Later, when 
I am making lots of money, I’ll tell him what 
I have been doing and then we’ll decide whether 
he will come East or baby and I will go to him!” 

With much misgiving and many demurs, Min¬ 
nie’s father finally gave his consent. Charles Mad- 
digan set out for Denver, believing that his wife 
and baby were being left in the quiet and shelter 
of his father-in-law’s house, and a day or two 
later Minnie started for New York, her bright¬ 
eyed little girl with her. The little one, Char¬ 
lotte, was not quite three years old. She was a 
good baby and pretty. All day on the train, she 
looked out of the window or played with a tiny 
gold cross on a chain about her neck. Her father 
had given it to her and her restless little teeth 
had made a dent in its smooth surface. Her father 
had shown her this dent and her unusually good 
memory kept it in mind. It amused her greatly, 
and many times during the day she held up the 
cross and invited her mother to inspect the dent. 


JEROME HARTE 


35 


Minnie Maddigan had thought well and long 
upon the plan of taking so young a child with her. 
She realized the disadvantages and danger, but 
she could not bear to think of leaving her baby 
with her stepmother. Mrs. Welsh No. 2 did 
not pretend to think a great deal of Minnie 
or her child, nor did she express any will¬ 
ingness to keep Charlotte. At least she was 
honest. 

“God is good,” said Minnie Maddigan, “and it 
seems to me that a divine hand must surely be 
guiding me, things have happened so opportunely. 
I do not believe that it is getting out of date, as 
my stepmother says, to believe in prayer and guid¬ 
ance, as we Catholics do; and if I put myself and 
my baby under the protection and guidance of the 
Blessed Mother and ask her intercession with God 
for our final and complete safety and happiness 
and reunion with papa Charlie, what harm can 
possibly befall us?” 

And so they went to New York. Minnie had 
the address of a boarding-house through the news¬ 
paper people who had befriended her, and she 
went there the night of her arrival. She was very 
tired, and Charlotte was a heavy load. 

Minnie found that her slender means could ill 


36 THE CHILD WITH TEE GOLD CROSS 

afford even the hall bedroom that she rented. She 
had read of hall bedrooms in New York boarding¬ 
houses. She remembered that as she undressed 
the sleeping baby and tucked her into the hard, 
narrow bed with the sheets that looked as though a 
world of cinders had been ground into them. In 
a magazine story, there had always seemed to be 
something attractive and romantic about a hall 
bedroom, even when its squalor was pictured. 
Minnie knew that things looked better at night 
and she smiled as she wondered what her hall room 
would look like in the light of day! 

But in far-off Denver a lonely, sick man was 
trying to get well enough to take care of his wife 
and child, and Minnie’s energetic, unselfish soul 
longed determinedly to fight more than half the 
battle for him. The whole world seemed easy 
enough to conquer if one would only work! At 
first, luck favored her in many ways. Her board¬ 
ing-house mistress, an overworked, weepy crea¬ 
ture, was a pious soul, with her honest heart in the 
right place, and she loved children. Charlotte was 
easy to take care of: she had not been coddled 
during her father’s illness and had learned to take 
care of herself in a winsome, dignified way. Old 
Mrs. Wall, the boarding-house mistress, took care 


JEROME EARTE 


37 


of Charlotte that first day of work for Mrs. Mad- 
digan in the hot, grimy New York newspaper 
office, and after that she insisted upon caring for 
the child every day. It was a piece of good fortune 
for Minnie and unexpected, but it brought other 
duties in its wake, for at night when she came 
home, if she was not working on the special arti¬ 
cles and stories that were so often turned down 
by the editor to whom they were submitted, she 
felt it her duty to help Mrs. Wall in return for 
the excellent care that really busy woman gave 
Charlotte all day long. This, with other things, 
served to undermine Minnie Maddigan’s perfect 
health before many months had passed. She did 
not cease to toil even after health, heart, and 
spirit were well-nigh broken. 

She “made good” on the woman’s page, but 
that meant not so much as one might suppose. 
The woman’s page pays little enough, heaven 
knows; the hours are long, the work killingly con¬ 
fining, and there is little chance of advancement. 
Minnie soon found out all that. But she strained 
onward, denying herself even sufficient food and 
clothing, that she might keep the baby well and 
lay aside pennies toward a fund for the reunion 
with her husband. 


38 THE CHILD WITH THE COLD CROSS 

At first, Charlie’s letters were forwarded 
promptly by her father, and Minnie in turn sent 
her father letters to be remailed to Denver. She 
had meant to tell her husband very soon of her 
work in New York, but she was doing so much 
more poorly than she had expected to do that her 
heart shrank from telling him. Then, too, his hope¬ 
ful letters told an uncertain tale between the lines 
for a wife’s keen mind to read. From her father 
she learned that the doctor knew that Charlie’s 
lungs were not mending as fast as might be hoped 
for. Minnie strained still harder and sent money 
to Denver. “It’s for a story, Charlie dear,” she 
wrote. “You see, I have nothing much to do here 
except write all day, and father gives me more 
money than baby and I need!” 

And she felt that the lie was needed for her 
husband’s health. 

When troubles come, they do not come singly. 
Minnie had been in New York two years when 
she got word of her father’s death. He had had 
a stroke and had died in a day, gaining conscious¬ 
ness only long enough to make his final peace with 
his Maker. Minnie was as hard-pressed for money 
as on her arrival in the great city. Her father 
had no fortune to leave to her stepmother and her. 


JEROME HARTE 


39 


There was a small insurance legacy in the wife’s 
name: she knew that. She swallowed her pride 
and wrote her stepmother, telling of her own pen¬ 
niless condition and begging for carfare home to 
see the well-loved face of her father before it was 
laid away in the ground. She was not surprised 
when she received no reply. 

Charlotte had had scarlet fever in the summer 
and there was not a cent of the savings-bank ac¬ 
count left to Minnie or she might have used that. 
And her husband’s letters did not come to her. 
Minnie sat down then and wrote him a merry, 
cheery letter, telling him all about it, and paint¬ 
ing her success in glowing colors. Days passed 
and no reply came. In frantic fear, Minnie wrote 
again and again. Charlie surely could not be 
angry with her? She stormed heaven with her 
prayers and tears. One day, her own letters be¬ 
gan to come back to her, unanswered! Nobody in 
Denver or in her own village, to which she wrote 
again and again, seemed to be able to tell her of 
her husband’s whereabouts. He had left his Den¬ 
ver position and boarding-house about the date of 
his father-in-law’s death, and that was all that 
anybody could write Minnie. So far as any one 
knew, he had not been back to his old home. 


40 THE CHILD WITH THE GOLD CROSS 

It was a sorry time for Minnie Maddigan. All 
strength and hope seemed to leave her. She 
dragged herself up and out to work each day, be¬ 
cause Charlotte had to be fed and housed, but she 
was dazed and lifeless. She did not get her copy 
out on time and in good form; she made serious 
mistakes in names and places; and any woman’s 
page in town could scoop her district. “You need 
a vacation,” said her chief coolly. “Take a month 
off.” 

“But I would starve!” gasped Minnie. 

The successful woman shrugged her shoulders. 
“You are doing everything wrong,” she said. 
“You will lose your position if this keeps up an¬ 
other two days!” 

The skies, indeed, seemed to have fallen, black 
and terrible, upon her head. “Is there a God?” 
she moaned over and over again, as she lay and 
tossed that night. It was a hot, breathless night, 
and the hall bedroom was heavy with the odors 
from a kitchen lately full of frying pork. 

Mrs. Wall was little enough help and comfort 
at a time like this. God knows she had a hard 
enough time living herself, and she had been good 
and generous to Minnie. The boarding-house 
mistress was a widow and she had buried many 


JEROME EARTE 


41 


children. She had had all the griefs and misfor¬ 
tunes on the calendar and she shed tears easily 
and did not easily give up a crying spell. Minnie 
could not bear to pour her wild misery into the 
older woman’s ear, and Charlotte was too young 
to understand. It is a great relief always to speak 
of one’s trouble. It lightens the madness of it. 
And Minnie needed sympathy and help most 
sorely. She realized that she was on the brink of 
a great breakdown, but she did not realize how 
great a one it was to be. 

The blow descended with the breaking of an¬ 
other day. She awoke early, as usual, and lay 
beside Charlotte, hating to get up. Her cheeks 
were burning and her limbs were cold. She could 
not bring her mind to plan her news campaign for 
the day: her thoughts would stray to green fields 
and the sound of running water. She raised her¬ 
self up, but her body was heavy and she fell back 
again. Charlotte stirred beside her and sat up, 
rubbing her eyes. 

“Mamma, are you talking to me?” asked the 
child sleepily. 

Minnie opened her heavy eyes. “I am not talk¬ 
ing, precious,” she said. 

Charlotte sat watching her mother. Soon she 


42 THE CHILD WITH THE COLD CROSS 


put her small hand upon her parent’s burning 
cheek. “You are talking, mamma/’ she insisted. 
“Who is Rastus an’ why should he get out, 
mamma ?” 

Minnie laughed softly. “Rastus was papa 
Charlie’s old black cat. I guess I never told you 
about him. He used always to chase the chickens. 
I must have been dreaming about him, then. Lie 
down, dear, till mother gets your breakfast.” 

Charlotte did not lie down. She was a pre¬ 
cocious child and wise beyond her five years, per¬ 
haps from being so much with her mother and 
older people. She watched her mother curiously 
and with sober eyes. 

Minnie managed to drag herself up on the side 
of the bed. Her body was like lead and the 
room was going round. “I am so tired this morn¬ 
ing,” she sighed. After a moment, she reached 
for her robe and put it about her. Then she stood 
up. She had taken only a step when she fell back 
across the bed. 

Charlotte touched her mother upon the cheek 
and then, jumping out of bed, she ran barefooted 
into the hall. “Mis’ Wall! Mis’ Wall!” she 
shouted in a shrill childish treble, “come, some¬ 
body, quick! My mamma’s died!” 


JEROME HARTE 


43 


When the doctor came, Minnie was wandering 
wildly, incoherently, over scenes unknown to her 
hearers. She was a flushed and burning wreck 
of humanity as she lay in her poor hall bed¬ 
room. 

"She's had an awful cold fer a long time, doc¬ 
tor/' said Mrs. Wall. "Seems though she jest 
couldn't git rid of it! I done all I could fer her, 
givin' her vinegar an' molasses an' bathin' her 
feet!" 

"It's probably typhoid pneumonia," said the 
physician. "I must get her to the hospital at 
once. I suppose she has no means of support, now 
that she is sick?" 

Mrs. Wall began to weep at once. "Nary a 
means a' tall!" she sobbed from her calico apron, 
‘flrnt if she must go t' the public ward, the chile 
shan't go to the asylum! I'll take care of her 
here!" 

The ambulance took Minnie Maddigan away 
in an hour and Charlotte watched it go through 
the snowflakes. She cried bitterly, mingling her 
tears with Mrs. Wall's lugubrious ones. 

"Mamma said I was goin’ to have a Christmas 
tree next week," she sobbed. 

Mrs. Wall kissed her with a resounding smack. 


44 THE CHILD WITH THE GOLD CROSS 


“Youse’ll have one, pettie,” she cried. “I’ll make 
one fer you meself !” 

But Charlotte looked at her gravely. “Oh, no, 
not without my mamma l” she said. 

Some time since, Minnie had read to her daugh¬ 
ter a little story about a small girl who had lived 
in a garret and had gone out into the winter 
street to sell matches that she might earn enough 
money to help support her sick mother. The story 
had had a lasting effect on Charlotte, and she had 
a remarkable memory. She told Mrs. Wall about 
it next day. 

“Did you hear that story my mamma read me ?” 
she asked. Mrs. Wall had not, so the child told 
it in detail. “I am goin’ to sell matches for to 
take care of my mamma!” she declared. 

Thereafter Mrs. Wall had another task added 
to her many hard ones, that of watching the child 
and keeping her out of the street. For Charlotte 
had a will of her own and she had made up her 
mind to sell matches and find a rich papa, as the 
little girl in the story had done. 

Mrs. Maddigan was a sick woman. At the hos¬ 
pital they did not offer much hope for her recov¬ 
ery. Her blood was impoverished and her system 
so run down with the months and months of over- 


JEROME HARTE 


45 


work, cold, and half starvation, that outraged 
Nature refused to come to her help. The nurses 
and doctors were doing all they could, but it was 
a big hospital in a big city and she was a charity 
patient with only poor, ignorant Mrs. Wall to 
come occasionally with Charlotte and inquire after 
the sick one. They were not allowed to see Min¬ 
nie. “The disease has to run its course anyway,” 
said the busy doctor kindly. “We’ll do all we 
can for her, but I have little hope.” 

Every time Charlotte saw a match or a match¬ 
box, she purloined it and hid it in her mother’s 
chest, which had been carried to the top floor room, 
where Charlotte now slept with Mrs. Wall. The 
hall bedroom had been rented to some new¬ 
comer. 

So, on the night before Christmas, when the 
tired boarding-house mistress had a thousand 
things to do, and thought that Charlotte was safe 
in the top floor bed, where she had been tucked 
away with her clothes on because Mrs. Wall would 
not have time to help her undress until the supper 
work was all done up, the child decided that she 
had quite a decent stock of matches to put into 
a pasteboard box she had been saving for them. 
She got into her outdoor things and stole down 


46 THE CHILD WITH THE GOLD CROSS 

the front way, where there were fewer people. She 
got out the front entrance without being seen. 

And a pretty, strange little picture she made! 
She was a very small girl and she had not put on 
her clothes just right. Her fur “kitty” hood was 
on backward, showing better her wealth of curly 
black hair, and she had not been able to find her 
mittens. She kept putting first one tiny bare 
hand and then the other into her coat pocket, for 
the night’s cold was stinging. It was snowing, 
too, and the soft flakes got into the open neck 
of her coat and wet her round throat. She had 
about her neck her little gold cross on its chain. 

Down the street she wandered farther and 
farther, calling out “Matches! matches!” in a 
shrill voice, just like the little girl in the story. 
There were not many people on the street, it be¬ 
ing late supper hour, and those there were hurried 
homeward laden with Christmas bundles. A 
short man with patched trousers stopped and 
bought a handful of matches from her. 

“Where’s your mother?” he asked. 

“In the hos-pi-tal,” said Charlotte, with her 
winsome lisp, and the man gave her another 
penny. Nobody else would buy. 

The streets began to grow more crowded, and 


JEROME EARTE 


47 


there were fewer houses. The lights within the 
shops grew inviting and Charlotte pressed nearer 
the windows. She was very, very cold. 

“Here, you!” cried a big, gruff voice, “where’s 
yer mother?” 

It was a tall policeman, and Charlotte was as 
much afraid of policemen as children usually are. 
She swallowed hard and held out her pasteboard 
box to him. 

“Matches! matches!” she said. “Please buy 
some matches!” 

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” said he, and laughed. 

A man came out of the eating-house next door 
and wandered toward them. He was a neat-look¬ 
ing fellow with a beard and he did not look over 
strong. In his face was written a story of mental 
suffering, such as one often sees in the face of a 
human being as it passes in a crowd. 

“What is it ?” he asked the policeman. 

“A kid sellin’ matches!” cried the policeman. 
“Got to lock her up, I guess! I haven’t seen that 
in the streets o’ New York in some time!” 

Charlotte held out the box to him. “Will you 
buy some matches?” she asked. “Only a penny.” 

“What is your name?” asked the man. 

“Charl-otte,” answered the child promptly. She 


48 THE CHILD WITH THE COLD CROSS 


dragged the first syllable bewitchingly and put 
much emphasis on the last. 

“What’s your other name ?” demanded the 
policeman. 

But Charlotte did not know. 

The other man pointed to the cross about her 
neck. “Where did you get that gold cross?” he 
asked. 

“My mamma says my papa gived it to me.” 

“Has it got the print of your baby teeth in it ?” 
asked the man. He picked up the child in his 
arms and turned his face to the officer. “I wish 
you’d look at it,” he said brokenly. “I’ve been 
hunting months for my wife and baby here and 
I’m afraid to look!” 

But Charlotte held up the cross with her own 
blue little hand. “It’s got a dent in it,” she said 
naively. 

The man buried his face in her shoulder and 
leaned back against the building, quite faint. 

“G’wan! ’tain’t yer kid!” cried the policeman 
incredulously. 

“Thank God,” said the man, “I think she is!” 

Then Charles Maddigan had to go with his 
child to the police station, because she did not 
know where she lived nor at what hospital her 


JEROME HARTE 


49 


mother was, and until he could find out these 
items young Maddigan was quite beside himself 
with worry. Not to know where his wife and 
child were was one thing, but to know definitely 
that his Minnie was dying and that he could not 
get to her was quite another, and maddening at 
that. Fortunately, Charlotte remembered Mrs. 
Walks name, and hours afterward, by means of 
the desk sergeants of the station-houses of the 
districts near which the child was wandering, Mrs. 
Wall was found. Charles Maddigan went to her 
at once to get the name of the hospital where his 
wife was. 

The papa Charlie whom Minnie had taught her 
child to know was the slim, smooth-shaven man in 
a photograph on her bureau, and Charlotte had 
kissed that good-night every bedtime since their 
coming to New York. The new papa with the 
beard did not seem right to her, but she had liked 
him on sight, chiefly because he had bought all her 
matches and hud promised to add every day to the 
collection of pennies he had given her. So, she 
looked after him soberly when he left her in Mrs. 
Walks protecting arms and set out at midnight 
for the hospital. 

Even a tired doctor has heart to listen to a 


50 THE CHILD WITH THE GOLD CROSS 

grief-stricken story on Christmas night, and 
Charlie Maddigan had a tale of interest to tell. 
At its conclusion, despite hospital rules, he took 
his seat by Minnie’s bedside and stayed there the 
night through. 

Next day she was moved into a private room and 
given a special nurse: Charles Maddigan could af¬ 
ford to do this. He came every evening with 
Charlotte to the hospital. Erelong Minnie be¬ 
gan to mend and before the New Year was well 
in she opened her eyes in consciousness and knew 
that her husband was with her. 

It was an interesting story that Charlie had to 
tell. His health had continued to improve, al¬ 
though slowly, in Denver, and his work there paid 
him fairly. He was putting aside money either to 
send for his family to come to him or to go back 
to them, and while Minnie’s letters came regularly 
and he thought her safe with her father in the old 
home town, he had been content and happy. But 
one day Minnie’s letter did not reach him. The 
next day and the next brought no letter from her. 
He began to grow worried. After a week’s silence, 
during which he wrote many frantic appeals to 
the old home town, he got a note from Minnie’s 
stepmother. As notes go, it was a most interesting 


JEROME EARTE 


51 


if vague and indefinite document. As Minnie 
read it, she understood many things that had 
seemed most unaccountable to her during those 
hard days of silence after her father's death. 

“Dear Mr. Maddigan”—ran her stepmother’s 
note—“my husband has just died and I am leav¬ 
ing town to be gone some months. Your wife took 
the baby to New York. I think she thought she 
might get work." 

That note had driven Charlie Maddigan quite 
frantic. On the eve of its arrival he was on his 
way East with a letter from a Denver busi¬ 
ness man to a good paying firm in New York. 
As soon as he got to his destination he went there 
first and secured a position, that he might not 
starve. In all his leisure time he looked for his 
wife. 

And he had so little information to work on 
and only his belief in God's goodness and help to 
keep up his hope! He wrote to their old home, 
but no one knew Minnie's address: she had been 
working too hard to keep up any friendly corre¬ 
spondence. The newspaper man who had helped 
her to her position had, strangely enough, gone to 
the Orient as a staff writer for American news¬ 
papers and Charlie's frantic letters had evidently 


52 THE CHILD WITH THE GOLD CROSS 

not yet reached him. At all events, he had not 
replied. His wife, Minnie’s school acquaintance, 
had been dead for some time. 

And so it was all cleared up. In spite of 
Charlie’s state of mind during his life in New 
York, he had done work that attracted his em¬ 
ployers, and when Minnie was up and out of the 
hospital he was given a splendid surprise in the 
shape of an important post in the southwest, and 
transportation thither. It was what his wife and 
he both needed. Charlotte was healthy, bless her 
heart! To this day she is sending all her pennies 
to Mrs. Wall. When Charlie is more prosperous, 
he says he is going to do something for that poor 
woman. 

“Minnie,” he often says, “the power of prayer 
is not dead, as heretics ask us to believe. If you 
and I had lost our faith under the stress of un¬ 
fortunate circumstances, would God have guided 
me that Christmas eve to that particular corner, 
that I might find my little one and recognize 
her in the child with the gold cross? The gold 
cross! It was a symbol, Minnie, of better days 
for us! Christ’s miracles are not yet through!” 


The Peregrinating Present 

BY MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 

John's mother says that he was always frivo¬ 
lous—but that since he was married she never in 
her life saw any one who could laugh so long and 
so loud at nothing, yes, nothing worth laughing 
at, as John. She thinks he grows frivolous. She 
is a very polite personage, and that is the nearest 
she has ever come to finding fault with me, but 
when you hear the story of what happened during 
her last visit with us I am sure you will think we 
laughed not without cause. 

Now it was like this: John and I have been mar¬ 
ried ever so long, nearly three years, but I haven’t 
learned yet how to keep track of his relatives. 
There’s a terrible lot of them and they all “count 
kin” to the Nth power. I like my kinfolk as well 
as most people, and I don’t object to my husband’s 
people in broken doses, but when it comes to keep¬ 
ing tally with “Jabez’ aunt’s son’s daughter by 
his first wife, who married Giles’ son by his third 
wife, and their children were Hepzibah, Jabez, Jr., 
and Faith Jemima”—really, it’s too much for 


54 


THE PEREGRIN A TIN G PRESENT 


me. Mother Hartwell is a perfect dear, and she 
not only remembers all their names and dates of 
birth (awfully embarrassing at times), but gives 
them all Christmas presents. Think of it! I 
know there are seventy-two of them, and Fd 
sooner give to a whole orphan asylum. You could 
buy a gross or two of dolls and tops and candy 
enough for an appropriate Christmas stomach¬ 
ache and every orphan would be delighted. But 
the Hartwell relatives aren’t so easily satisfied— 
not they! Their gifts have to bear all the ear¬ 
marks of having been especially intended for 
them, to satisfy their Christmas spirit, and poor 
mother sits up nights for weeks before Christmas. 
When she came to visit us I tried to help her out, 
and finally three days before Christmas she 
breathed a sigh of relief, for the last name was 
checked off her list. We retired early to sleep, 
worn with the labors of the trying season of good 
will, when lo! at the breakfast table mother met 
me with a woebegone countenance. 

“My dear,” she cried, “the most awful thing 
has happened ! I have forgotten your Cousin Em¬ 
meline !” 

“Who’s Cousin Emmeline?” I asked. 

“She’s an old frump who lives out at Evanston,” 


MARY F. mXON-ROULET 


55 


said my husband. His mother says John has no 
family feeling, and he has remarked to me at 
times that, barring his immediate family, he pre¬ 
ferred the relatives marriage thrust upon him to 
those with which he was endowed by an unkind 
Providence. To his unflattering remark about 
Cousin Emmeline, John’s mother said, “Son !” 
with a shocked look, and added: “She is an estima¬ 
ble woman.” 

John growled something. He doesn’t like being 
reproved before me. I fancy he thinks it makes 
him appear small in my eyes! When he growls, 
I always talk very fast until his growl is over, so 
I chattered till the postman whistled, and the 
maid brought in the letters and a parcel. 

“How exciting ! Parcels already!” I said. “It’s 
for you, mother.” 

“It is addressed in your Cousin Hannah Byers’ 
writing and it looks like a book,” she said, slowly 
studying the outside with that calmness so irritat¬ 
ing to people who want to know the inside of a 
thing. 

“It’s likely one of those infernal authors’ copies 
of things she’s always unloading on her unsus¬ 
pecting relatives,” said John, whose growl wasn’t 
quite over. He ate lobster the night before, and 


56 


TEE PEREGRINATING PRESENT 


when he does that one doesn’t want to call him 
Jack, but just plain John, or perhaps “Dear.” 

His mother was too occupied with untying the 
string, picking out the knots and rolling it up into 
a little ball to notice him, so he went on: 

“She’s always meeting authors or would-be 
ones, and buying their books, reading them her¬ 
self, and then sending them around for Christmas 
presents. As if anybody wants such things lit¬ 
tering up a self-respecting library!” 

“Yes, this is from Hannah. ‘Sure you would 
enjoy it, since it is dear Dr. Ten Eyke’s last book/ 
she says. Oh! it’s poetry, illustrated. Lovely of 
Hannah to remember me, but she knows I have 
no place to put books. I have no house and am 
always traveling around. I don’t like to look a 
gift horse in the mouth, but if she had selected 
something just a little less cumbersome!” Mother 
stopped. “But, Mary, what shall I do about 
Cousin Emmeline? We—can we go downtown 
again ?” 

I had spent three days in the department stores 
with mother, and the night before John had 
rubbed me for three hours, one for each day, and 
had declared that this shopping was all—ahem!— 
nonsense, and that I shouldn’t go downtown again 


MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 


57 


before Christmas to buy a present for the Akound 
of Swat! I looked out of the window and it was 
snowing. I glanced at John; he was scowling in 
anything but a Christmas spirit. 

“I should love to go, mother,” I said hesitat¬ 
ingly, but John said brusquely, “You're neither 
of you fit to go out in this vile weather. If you 
must send Cousin Emmeline anything, send her 
that fool book Cousin Hannah sent you. I be¬ 
lieve in putting things where they will do the 
greatest good to the greatest number. You don't 
want the thing—maybe Cousin Emmeline does. 
You'd be really selfish to keep it from her.” John 
was warming up to his work. He loved to argue 
and the gleam of relief he saw in my eye encour¬ 
aged him. 

“That's a handsome book and Cousin Emmeline 

\ 

likes handsome things. Send it on to her. Pass 
it on. True Christmas spirit I call it. Give unto 
others the things others give unto you. I'm sure 
that's the golden rule, isn't it?” He looked in¬ 
nocent. 

Dear little mother-in-law looked puzzled, but the 
leaven worked. 

“I hardly like to give away a gift,” she said 
slowly. “But-” 



58 


TEE PEREGRINATING PRESENT 


“I think it would be just the thing,” I chimed 
in. “Write a note and say you thought she would 
enjoy a book, as she is so literary, and she’ll be 
flattered to death. We really can’t go out into 
this awful storm and face that braying herd of 
bargain-hunters and become like unto them. Do 
send it to her, mother,” and mother weakly con¬ 
sented. 

“It doesn’t seem quite honest,” she protested, 
but we assured her that it was, and I gave the 
clinching argument by saying: 

“You see, it’s not the value of the gift, but the 
thought at which one should look, and you are 
thinking enough about Cousin Emmeline’s present, 
I’m sure, as much as if you had paid ten dollars 
for it.” 

So “The Prayer of the Blighted Being,” bound 
in vellum, wrapped in tissue paper and tied in 
blue ribbons, hastened, via Uncle Sam’s gray- 
coated Mercury, Cousin Emmelineward, and peace 
brooded o’er us, the peace of Christmas presents 
bought. 

So far, so good. Mother left us the day after 
Christmas to go to visit John’s sister, and scarce 
was the dear lady out of the house before the post¬ 
man brought a parcel addressed to John. I don’t 


MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 


59 


know why, but there was something familiar in 
the aspect of that parcel. I never open John’s 
letters—better not, don’t you think so?—but I 
fairly ached to undo that package. I had to curb 
my curiosity until he came home at night, and 
after dinner I brought it to him. 

“What’s that—a belated present? Kind of nice 
to get something the day after, isn’t it? Takes 
away that after-the-ballish feeling, doesn’t it? 
Hope it’s a nice story, Pollykins; I’d like to read 
aloud to you to-night. Haven’t had you all to 
myself for so long, that youngster upstairs takes up 
so much of your time. No, I don’t wish we didn’t 
have him. He’s all right as kids go, but it strikes 
me he’s getting to be rather a prominent feature 
in the landscape. This is certainly a book”—John 
was untying it—“I feel it in my bones that it’s 
a dandy, and that we’re going to have a first-class 
time with it. It’s”—John stopped, looked at the 
book, then at me. Then, “Well, I’ll be—” I put my 
hand over his mouth, then gave a hysterical giggle. 

“Sure as you live it’s ‘The Blighted Being,’ ” I 
gasped. “Where did it come from ?” and as I spoke 
a card dropped out: 

“Merry Christmas to John, with Cousin Em¬ 
meline’s love.” 


60 


THE PEREGRINATING PRESENT 


“Of all things to send a man !” John’s tone was 
tragic. “Chuck it out! Blighted Being indeed !” 

“But, dear,” I protested, with a thoroughly 
wifely desire to bring his words back upon himself,' 
“Cousin Emmeline was only following out your 
axiom of giving unto others the things they give 
unto you! She ‘passed it on’; true Christmas 
spirit, wasn’t it? Greatest good to the greatest 
number! She’d have been selfish to keep it, you 
know! Oh!” and I broke down in perfect con¬ 
vulsions of laughter. John glared at me, then 
laughed, too. 

“Of all the forsaken little wretches!” He set 
me on his knee. “Laughing at your lord and mas¬ 
ter, are you? How dare you? Don’t you know 
you’re no bigger than Hop o’ my Thumb, and I 
could grind you to powder? Nice kind of a wife 
you are! Where’s your proper respect ?” 

“Proper fiddlesticks,” I said. “Oh, if your 
mother were only here! To think you should have 
argued so warmly to send it on, and you should 
be the one to get it! It’s too killing! You and 
your relatives will be the death of me yet, with 
your peregrinating presents.” I buried my face 
on his shoulder and laughed until I cried. 

“Don’t ever tell your mother,” I said. “She’d 


MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 


G1 


never get over it.” And we put away Cousin Em¬ 
meline’s present and thought no more about it. I 
say we. I should say John thought of it no more 
save as a passe joke. 

Once or twice, when there arose unexpected 
drains upon our slender resources for wedding-gifts 
to friends who had remembered us, he said laugh¬ 
ingly, “Why not send ’em Cousin Emmeline’s 
‘Blighted Being’?” and I laughed in reply, but 
the idea implanted remained, and finally when 
Easter came, and I received from an acquaintance, 
a very bookish woman, a handsome box of Easter 
lilies, my thoughts reverted to the poems. I had 
no money to buy flowers—I must send her some¬ 
thing since she had remembered me—that book— 
I hated to do it, but it was so handsome, and I 
fell. Again, like Japhet in search of a father, sped 
forth “The Blighted Being,” but of this I told not 
John, salving my reticence over to my conscience 
with the feeling that if he asked, of course I would 
tell him, but that it wasn’t worth while to bother 
him with trifles. A man’s mind is fitted for great 
things; why trouble him with the insignificant 
things of a woman’s existence? 

So Banquo’s ghost was laid, and “The Blighted 
Being’s” accustomed haunts knew it no more. Only 


62 


THE PEREGRINATING PRESENT 


once or twice was it mentioned, and then I guiltily 
changed the subject, for it was borne in upon me 
that I would never hear the last of it if John found 
out that I had sent the book away. When the next 
Christmas came John got a balky fit. 

“Do you think I’m going to stand having you 
hound me to death for duds to send to my own 
relatives? What earthly difference does it make? 
Send anything you want to your own people, but 
quit bothering me!” 

“Oh, J ohn!” I exclaimed, “you must give your 
people things, you really must. It won’t do at all 
not to. They always do it. Why, people would 
say dreadful things about me! They’d say I was 
grasping and stingy and wouldn’t let you spend a 
cent, that I spent all your money on my own rela¬ 
tives ; that I tried to separate you from your own 
folk, that— Oh, I can’t tell you how they’d talk! 
They don’t know that you never gave a present 
for years before you were married, but that mother 
bought things and sent them around with dove 
from John.’ You’ve been a regular whited 
sepulcher for lo! these many Christmases and now 
you can just think of your own things for your own 
people. People have to pay some penalty for their 
relatives, and any man who has eleven pairs of 


MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 


63 


aunts and uncles and thirty-two first cousins, and 
counts kin to second cousins once removed has 
got to have some ideas in his head at Christmas 
time !” 

“Well” said John as I closed my tirade, "I’ll 
get mother a lace handkerchief and my sister an 
umbrella, and I’ll send whatever you say to the 
aunts, but as for Cousin Emmeline, I’m going to 
send her ‘The Blighted Being.’ ” 

My blood froze in my veins. John’s mouth wore 
the expression I well knew, a sort of sulky de¬ 
termination which I had combated in vain. 

“Oh, don’t!” I exclaimed impulsively. 

“I shall!” he said. “She has forgotten long 
ago that she sent it here. Besides, if she sent it 
to me because she didn’t want it, she deserves to 
get it back. If she sent it and did want it, she’ll 
be glad to have it again. If you make me send 
her anything it shall be ‘The Blighted 
Being.’ ” 

I opened my mouth to tell him I had sent it 
away, but callers came in at the moment, and my 
chance was gone. I never felt so mean in my life 
as I did at the idea of having a secret from John, 
but the thought of his raillery preyed upon me. 
I knew he’d simply tease me to death, and I held 


64 


TEE PEREGRINATING PRESENT 


my peace. His mother came for Christmas and 
we had our customary days of fevered shopping, 
and on Christmas eve we all lay upon our beds 
worn to the bone, but satisfied that the last knot 
was tied and the last parcel off, and that there was 
nothing to do the next day but enjoy our gifts, our 
minds free from the harrowing responsibility of 
the week before Christmas. 

“Fm so glad it’s all over,” I murmured drows¬ 
ily, and John growled that it was all some kind of 
a nuisance and then asked, “What did you do about 
Cousin Emmeline’s present ?” I didn’t answer, 
but my gentle and regular breathing must have 
told him I was asleep, for he said, “Poor little tad 
—fast asleep already! Just worn to frazzles with 
this infernal present business.” 

I felt terribly guilty, and in a few minutes had 
made up my mind to tell him right there, so I 
said, “John!” He was just dropping off and 
said, “Huh ?” and sat up in bed very suddenly, ask¬ 
ing, “What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing,” I said. “Only I want to tell you 
something.” 

“Now, look here, Polly,” he said, “I’m de¬ 
lighted to converse with you at any time of the day 
or night, but you’re about done up, and if it’s 


MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 


65 


Christmas presents you want to talk about, you’d 
better wait till to-morrow.” 

“It’s an Easter present,” I stammered. 

“Oh, gee whiz, Mary, let the dead past bury its 
dead and the future, too, but for heaven’s sake 
don’t go raking up Easter presents to worry over 
before we have Christmas off our hands. You 
promised to obey me, and I forbid you to mention 
any kind of a present to me to-night!” 

I said, “Yes, sir” very meekly, and subsided, but 
the Spartan fox was gnawing at my vitals and I 
knew my sin would find me out. I felt it in 
my bones that the morrow would bring forth 
fruits meet for repentance, and I slept timor¬ 
ously. 

The morning dawned clear and cool and crisp, 
veritable Christmas weather. The ground was 
white, the sky was blue, the sun was bright, and all 
hearts were light with the abandon of a holiday. 
Care was forgot and after the fret of the past 
week’s strenuous life, I forgot all but the pleasure 
of the moment. We had all enjoyed our gifts 
when the postman’s ring aroused us to fresh in¬ 
terest and John brought in packages for each and 
every one. I plunged eagerly into my parcels, and 
left them to rescue John, Jr., from trying to swal- 


66 


THE PEREGRINATING PRESENT 


low a string ball, when I heard an exclamation 
from John. I looked up, and there he stood with 
“The Blighted Being” in his hands. He looked 
from it to me, from me to it. 

“Say,” he said in bewilderment, “Polly, what’s 
the matter with me? Is this blamed thing twins 
or am I seeing things? Fll bet you dollars to 
doughnuts it’s the same one! Here’s the place 
where the twine cut the cover. IPs a clear case 
of the cat came back—but where in the dickens has 
she been?” 

I giggled hysterically. 

“ ‘The curse has come upon me, said the Lady of 
Shalott,’ ” I quoted. “I confess my sins. I was 
going to tell you all about it last night and you 
wouldn’t let me. I got in a tight place last Easter 
and sent it to that rich old Mrs. Pennypacker who 
sent me those magnificent lilies. I hadn’t the price 
to buy a thing for her and I had to send her some¬ 
thing.” 

Now, aren’t men funny! I had hesitated to 
tell John because I thought he’d think it such a 
joke and laugh at me, and what do you think he 
did ? He didn’t laugh a bit. He just sobered up 
and said, “Darn it all! I wish I was making 
enough money so you could give people whatever 


MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 


67 


you pleased and not have to go falling back on 
some old wandering Jew Christmas present.” 

“Oh, fiddlesticks, you foolish boy!” I cried. “I 
think it’s the best joke I ever heard of. You to 
start the ball rolling and now the villain still pur¬ 
sues you. You’re getting your own medicine with 
a vengeance. But where did it come from?” 

“It’s addressed in my sister’s writing, but where 
did she get it ?” He looked puzzled. 

“I can’t inform you,” I said, and just then 
mother came in. 

“I’ve a letter from Ellen,” she said sweetly. 
“She sends her love and wishes she could remem¬ 
ber you all liberally this year, but they’ve lost so 
much they really haven’t a cent to spare. She 
couldn’t let the day pass, however, without remem¬ 
bering her only brother, so she sends John a book. 
It is one which Mrs. Pennypacker sent to her, and 
while she appreciated the gift, she thought perhaps 
J ohn could use it in his literary work, as it seemed 
to be full of quotable extracts. She knew you 
would appreciate the thought of you and not think 
of its value-” 

That was the limit, and I burst into shrieks 
of laughter which almost ended in a fit of hys¬ 
terics, scarce ameliorated by my catching sight of 



68 


TEE PEREGRINATING PRESENT 


mother, with alarmed face, holding the vinegar 
cruet to my nose under the impression that I might 
faint and that she had the smelling-salts. 

“Oh, John,” I gasped, “show it to her. It’s the 
same old friend, the dear departed. It actually is, 
mother. Here’s its pedigree warranted, registered. 
Cousin Hannah sent it to you, you sent it to Cousin 
Emmeline. She sent it to John, I sent it to Mrs. 
Pennypacker, Mrs. Pennypacker sent it to Ellen, 
Ellen sent it to John, and here we are again. Wel¬ 
come home, long lost Prodigal! Never again shall 
you leave our hospitable roof. To-night shall the 
ghost be laid!” 

“Well, I never!” Mother was shocked. “I am 
surprised at Emmeline Hough! To think that she 
would give away a thing that I gave—” Mother 
stopped short, a guilty red suffused her cheeks. 
We all looked at each other, and I said, “This is 
a case where ‘people who live in glass houses 
shouldn’t throw stones,’ ” and John remarked, 
“Let not the pot criticise the kettle’s complexion,” 
but mother shook her head slowly from side to side, 
and said nothing. 


The Allies of Destiny 

BY MARION AMES TAGGART 

Discussing the problem of how to pay the taxes, 
the Feltons arrived at no conclusion. It was not 
the taxes alone; eliminating food and fuel the 
taxes would have been easily met, but food and 
fuel were the necessary foundation upon which all 
calculations were based. Hence they left that 
year’s tax in the position of an outsider for which 
provision had not been made. 

The Feltons discussed the tax question early and 
late, the mother, the pretty eldest daughter, and 
the big boy, who was at that trying stage of life 
when he felt old enough to be responsible for his 
family, and every one else regarded him as too 
young to be paid more than five dollars a week. 

They discussed it before the twins, those ex¬ 
tremely active members of the family whose seven 
years had not fulfilled the promise of the cate¬ 
chism, but were proving the age of unreason, and 
of pranks beyond the prevision of any adult mind. 
Rob and Bert—they were both named for their 


70 


THE ALLIES OF DESTINY 


father, dead before their birth—listened to the 
discussion of ways and means until it seemed to 
them that this uncomprehended Tax was a ra¬ 
pacious monster, unappeasable, threatening, that 
nobody knew how to encounter. It would not have 
surprised them if Jack had announced his inten¬ 
tion of riding down upon it as St. George rode 
down upon the dragon in their stories of the saints. 
Bob wished that he would; he felt sure that he 
could have teased Jack into taking him up in front 
of him on the saddle. 

There was other trouble in the Felton house¬ 
hold, a trouble with which competent mother and 
helpful Amy knew how to grapple, and which was 
to the twins no trouble at all, but hilarious delight. 
This was the annual housecleaning, deferred till 
autumn because the twins had been unanimous in 
measles in the spring. The guest-room carpet 
was up, or rather its tacks were loosened, and 
mother and Amy were dusting the backs of the 
parlor pictures while Eob and Bert ran riot. 

“ You’ll break i-i-i-t!” screamed Amy, helpless 
on the stepladder while Bert balanced aloft a 
cherished vase. “Won’t you go out and play ? Oh, 
Eob, won’t you, won't you go outdoors with Bert 
till we’re through?” 


MARION AMES TAGGART 


71 


“I can’t, Amy/’ returned Rob reasonably, though 
he was most unreasonably upsidedown for a mo¬ 
ment, having fallen over the fender. “I can’t go 
out with Bert, ’cause Bert’s going to stay in. We 
can play out any day. ’Tain’t often this house’s 
as intrusting as ’tis now. We don’t care about 
playing out, Amy.” 

“We’d just as lieve help you, Amy; just ’s 
lieve as not,” added Bert. 

“Lieveser,” confirmed Rob. “We’d like to help; 
then you’d be patienter having us ’round.” 

“Mother, is there anything that we could set 
these children at? Anything not breakable, or 
dangerously droppable, or too much under foot? 
Do think of something, or we shall go crazy,” Amy 
pleaded. 

Her mother considered. “There is the guest¬ 
room carpet,” she said at last. “You know we 
meant to take the tacks out of that, but we shall 
not get through in time to-day. Twinlets, would 
you like to take the tacks out of the carpet for 
us ?” 

“Can you?” gasped Rob with a sudden excite¬ 
ment that mystified his mother. 

“How’d you find it out?” added Bert. 

“Of course you can get them out. Go right up, 


72 


THE ALLIES OF DESTINY 


and be sure you get them all. There must not be 
any tacks left, or no supper for lazy twins !” Mrs. 
Felton’s smile disarmed this threat of its terror, 
and the twins laughed back at her jubilantly. Con¬ 
sidering their years and mischievousness they had 
been remarkably depressed by the tax bugaboo— 
and here, unexpectedly, was their mother announc¬ 
ing that the tax could be got out of the carpet, 
and that they were to do it! 

They went upstairs hastily, and surveyed the 
instrument of rescue; they essayed lifting it and 
found it dismayingly heavy. 

“We’ll have to get Bouncing B!” Rob said. 

“Bouncing B” was properly William Blodgett, 
but from William to Bill, and from Bill to Bounc- 
ing B, was a natural transition when one saw the 
size of the big boy next door, who was the twins’ 
reliance when their little arms were unequal to 
carrying out the plots of their active brains. 

Back stairs are desirable. The twins assured 
each other that their mother had meant them to 
sell the carpet, for she had told them to get the 
tax out of it, yet for some reason they preferred 
going down the back stairs to go after Bill, without 
•whom they could not fulfil her instructions. 

“Thev are two kinds of tax,” observed Bert ten- 


MARION AMES TAGGART 


73 


tatively, as they turned to leave the room, her eyes 
falling on the points of the second sort of tacks, 
bristling around the edge of the carpet. Bert 
evinced symptoms of a conscience at times; it was 
Rob's easy task to suppress it. 

“One kind is enough to worry poor mamma," he 
said, hurrying his twin down the rear hall. “Won't 
she be glad, Bert, if we sell it for a lot so it can't 
worry her any more!" His tone was a nice ad¬ 
justment of commiseration and filial rapture. 
Bert quickly attuned herself to the enterprise in 
hand; love of Rob and love of doing things— 
chiefly things that should not be done—were Bert's 
ruling passions. 

Bill had no scruples. He was a dull boy, in¬ 
capable of inventing the pranks that the clever 
little Feltons evolved, but that only added zest to 
the escapades into which they ushered him, and ex¬ 
plained his readiness to do the bidding of children 
half his age. 

“Where'll you take it, and how'll you get it 
there?" Bill demanded. “Say, will your mother 
go for me?" 

“She told us to get the tax outer the carpet; 
'sides, my mother never goes for nobody," returned 
Rob with dignity. Bill eyed him admiringly. It 



74 


THE ALLIES OF DESTINY 


never occurred to him that Bob honestly mistook 
his mother’s meaning. For that matter Eob did 
not allow himself to make sure of this point. 

“We’ll take it to that house where the new 
family’s just moved in a while ago; prob’ly they’ll 
need carpets. And we’ll take it on the wheelbar¬ 
row ; you’ll roll it up, and we’ll help push,” Eob re¬ 
plied, so promptly that Bert admiringly saw that 
he had planned his campaign down the back stairs 
and across the street. 

Bill was brought up to the guest chamber so 
quietly that it was suggestive of doubt in the twin- 
minds leading the enterprise. Bill lost no time 
in getting his aids on the same side of the room, 
and beginning to roll up the carpet, Bert with her 
skirts tilting upward as she leaned down over the 
increasing roll, Eob with knickerbockers wide 
apart as he braced himself, tongue out, to keep up 
with the big boy’s directions. 

“How’ll we get it downstairs?” Bert panted, 
pushing back her hair from a damp brow with 
hands that left a dusty paste on its crimson surface. 

“Start it down lengthways, and let her slide; 
I’ll hold her back, and you can run alongside to 
steer her,” Bill directed, also mopping his brow. 

The conspirators shoved, pushed, and pulled the 


MARION AMES TAGGART 


75 


roll of carpet along the hall, and started it sliding 
downstairs. It arrived at the bottom sooner than 
they had intended. Arrived, noiselessly, although 
it had bowled Bert over and carried her with it to 
the bottom. 

There was one thing about Bert, as Rob always 
admitted: she was a girl, but she took her misfor¬ 
tunes as soundlessly as a boy—probably because 
she was twin to a boy, which ought to mean the 
same thing as being half a boy. Mrs. Felton and 
Amy, still occupied with the pictures, were no¬ 
where in sight. Bill, with the twins tugging and 
puffing, pushed the carpet on to the wheelbarrow, 
and the three started off, without delaying to re¬ 
cover breath, until they were well around the cor¬ 
ner and down the next street—so hard is it to dis¬ 
tinguish the symptoms of unselfish devotion from 
a consciousness of guilt. 

It was further than one could have wished to 
the house into which the new family had moved. 
The cavalcade was long reaching it, for it stopped 
to rest often, and oftener as the distance between 
the children and the Felton house increased. 

It was difficult to wheel the barrow into the gate 
of destination, just as it had been difficult to avoid 
passers-by all the way to it. The roll of carpet 


76 


THE ALLIES OF DESTINY 


stood out uncompromisingly across the side-board¬ 
less wheelbarrow, and people had made vigorous 
remarks about it all the way along—there had 
been so many legs to dodge that Rob said 
“it seemed as though all the people were quad- 
ropegs.” 

There was so much difficulty in getting in at the 
gate that it took a great while to accomplish it, so 
that when at last the wheelbarrow was started up 
the flagged walk to the house a lady had come out 
on the piazza to speculate on the arrival, and a 
young man stood beside her. 

“Here, you youngsters, we’re not a steam-clean¬ 
ing establishment!” the young man called out. 

“We have a carpet to sell,” returned Rob in his 
most manly voice, happily unconscious of how- 
dirty the dusty carpet had made his face. 

“To sell!” exclaimed the lady. “Who sent you 
here? What’s your name?” 

“Robert Felton; I live ’way over and ’round on 
Hamilton Street,” said Rob. 

“By all that’s gracious! The small brother of 
that very pretty girl we’ve been seeing at Mass, 
and whom I want so badly to meet!” murmured 
the young man. “Buy the carpet, mother; buy the 
boy and the girl with it; don’t buy the big boy.” 


MARION AMES TAGGART 


77 


“Don't be absurd, Joe!" laughed his mother, 
“Were you sent here to sell the carpet, children?" 

“And this is my twin, Bert Felton," Bob con¬ 
tinued, having paused to listen to this brief con¬ 
versation. “My father died before we was born, 
so we both got his name, only they called it Boberta 
for her, and Bobert for me. Mamma didn't send 
us here, but I thought you'd most likely want car¬ 
pets, 'cause you moved. She said— She’s been 
fearful worried 'bout the tax, and we had to sell 
the carpet to pay for it," Bob altered the state¬ 
ment which he had begun to make into one at once 
more truthful and more touching. 

“Oh, by Jove!" murmured the son, flushing with 
distress at this statement. “Can't we use it, 
mother ?" 

“Is it likely, Joe?" murmured his mother, re¬ 
ferring not to the possibility of their using the 
carpet, but to Bob’s tale. “Not even beaten, as you 
see? Master Bobert Felton, are you quite sure 
that your mother wants to sell her carpet? Does 
she know that you have carried it off?" 

Bob reddened painfully under this unexpected 
astuteness on the part of a lady who looked gentle 
enough to be less keen-minded, while Bill shuffled 
and looked backward at the gate as the camel may 


78 


THE ALLIES OF DESTINY 


look at the gate called “The Needle’s Eye.” But 
Bert, whose conscience was not now under Rob’s 
immediate control, spoke up with that frankness 
to which she was unpleasantly liable at critical 
moments. 

“She was worried about the tax. And she told 
us to take the tax out of the carpet—honest, true, 
black and blue, wisher-may-die-and-cross-my- 
heart!” she said rapidly. 

The young man called Joe gave a wild whoop of 
laughter, and his mother joined in it. “You 
needn’t take so many oaths, my lassie; I fully be¬ 
lieve your statement,” she said, glancing at the 
edge of the carpet. 

“Let me escort this precious pair home, mother, 
and explain the situation,” Joe cried. “They are 
the instruments, the allies of destiny. We’ll leave 
the wheelbarrow here, don’t you see, and I can 
take that back after dark. There are two 
calls certain, and after that I dare hope for a 
third. Is your sister at home, you twin hope¬ 
fuls ?” 

“She’s cleaning the parlor pictures,” returned 
Rob icily; he did not like in the least this pro¬ 
gramme. “They had to clean house now, ’cause we 
had measles last spring.” 


MARION AMES TAGGART 


79 


“Good for you!” cried Mr. Joe, disappearing 
into the house, and reappearing with his hat. 
“Come on and lead me to the shrine of that sweet 
little lady who has been disturbing my devotions 
for the past four Sundays so that I couldn’t tell 
the Confiteor from the Credo.” 

“It comes first,” said Bert, accepting Joe’s 
proffered hand readily. But Rob stalked down 
the walk alone, his face crimson with many sup¬ 
pressed feelings, from which anxiety as to his re¬ 
ception at home was not absent. 

“The wheelbarrow stays here, and the big boy 
follows us,” Joe directed. And each carried out 
his instructions as he swung out of the gate. 

Amy Felton, looking out of the parlor window 
while her mother wildly got ready to go to search 
for her strayed twins and purloined carpet, saw 
the procession coming with relief that instantly 
gave place to another emotion. 

“Mother, mother, they are coming home. And 
they are brought by—who do you suppose ? That 
young man we’ve been seeing at church, that one 
with the fine face and the warm look in his eves! 
The one I’ve been wishing I— The one that looks 
as if he would be so pleasant to know! Hurry 
down; oh, hurry!” 


80 


THE ALLIES OF DESTINY 


She ran down herself and opened the door, all 
smiles and blushes and pretty embarrassment. 

“I’ve brought you back your twins—no ques¬ 
tions asked, I hope. They’ve been trying to ped¬ 
dle carpeting. Say, promise you won’t let them 
get what’s coming to them! They’re a mighty 
nice little pair,” Joe explained and pleaded rapidly. 

“I suppose none of us can escape what is com¬ 
ing to us, but we are not hard on the twins,” 
smiled Amy. “Won’t you come in and let my 
mother thank you?” 

“There are times when one doesn’t want to es¬ 
cape what’s coming to him,” said Joe suggestively 
as he complied. “I regard these twins as the 
allies of destiny.” 

And, judging by what followed their escapade, 
they really must have been. But this story ends 
here. 


Mary’s Prayer 

BY REV. MICHAEL OTT, O.S.B. 

It was a few days before Christmas in the year 
1905. Large snowflakes were playing hide-and- 
seek before the windows of a snug little cottage 
in a small town of southern Minnesota. Now and 
then an unusually large flake would for a mo¬ 
ment adhere to the window-pane and stealthily 
peep into the room, where Mary Doran, a girl of 
twelve years, was busily engaged in a lively con¬ 
versation with her older brother William, who 
had returned from St. Louis 7 college to spend the 
Christmas holidays at home. The beaming face 
of the pretty little girl gave evidence of the joy 
she felt at having her dear brother with her again. 
All former teasing and raillery were forgotten, 
and brother and sister enjoyed each other’s com¬ 
pany as they had never done before. The past four 
months of separation, far from diminishing their 
affection, served only to make them dearer to each 
other. 

When finally a short lull came in the conversa- 


82 


MARY’S PRAYER 


tion, both for a moment listlessly watched the 
playful maneuvers of the snowflakes without. 
Mary now noticed for the first time a look of 
melancholy on William’s brow, and a trace of 
moisture in his glistening blue eyes. Putting her 
little arms around his shoulders and lovingly draw¬ 
ing his head toward her she inquired, with a sis¬ 
ter’s deepfelt sympathy, the cause of his sadness. 
“’Tis nothing, Mary,” he said, while trying to 
evade her searching eyes. Mary, however, knew 
her brother too well to let herself be put off so 
easily, and insisted on knowing the cause of his 
grief. 

After some hesitation William told his sister 
that upon mature consideration he had decided 
to give up studying for the priesthood because he 
felt that he had no vocation. Mary was a pious 
girl and her most ardent desire was that her 
brother should become a priest. Day and night 
she had importuned the Sacred Heart of Jesus to 
grant her this favor. William’s resolution, com¬ 
ing so unexpectedly, overwhelmed the girl with a 
grief which manifested itself in an uncontrollable 
outburst of tears. William tried his best to con¬ 
sole her. He told her that God does not wish to 
make a priest of every man, that there are many 


REV. MICHAEL OTT, O.8.B. 


83 


noble professions besides the sacred ministry; but 
Mary would not be consoled. She had prayed so 
often and so urgently to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 
and an inward voice had told her that her favor 
was granted. When assisting at the holy sacrifice 
of the Mass she often pictured to herself William 
in place of the celebrating priest, and now, of a 
sudden, her hopes were so rudely shattered! She 
could not believe that William had no vocation; 
for, if this were the case, that inward voice, which 
she took to be the voice of Jesus, would not have as¬ 
sured her that her request was granted. 

When the first outburst of grief had somewhat 
subsided, she began pleading with her brother; 
but, though he loved her dearly, he did not waver 
in his resolution. Could Mary then have looked 
into William’s heart, she would have been shocked 
to see not only that he had resolved not to become 
a priest, but even that he was dangerously near 
making shipwreck of his faith. 

It was William’s Junior year in the classical 
course of St. Louis’ college. From the beginning 
of his college career he had set his mind firmly 
on becoming a priest and, until recently, he never 
had any serious doubts regarding his vocation. His 
talents were far beyond the ordinary. In Latin he 


84 


MARY’S PRAYER 


was always at the head of his class, and in his other 
studies he was at least second or third best. His 
conduct was irreproachable. During the six years 
of his college life he had never been in a serious 
scrape, either with professors or disciplinarians. 
By his geniality and good behavior he gained the 
affection of all, and on account of his great popu¬ 
larity he wielded an immense influence for good 
upon his fellow-students. In his presence no one 
would dare utter a curse or vulgar joke. He was 
an expert at baseball and a valued member of the 
football team. 

Though all his fellow-students, even such as in 
college parlance go by the name of “toughs,” liked 
and respected William, still there were two with 
whom he was especially intimate. They were Fred 
Hawkins, the captain of the first football team, 
and Robert Douglas, who, on account of the un¬ 
limited stock of words at his command, was better 
known among the boys as the “Walking Diction¬ 
ary.” Fred Hawkins was in the same class with 
William, but Robert Douglas had been graduated 
from the classical course the preceding June and 
was now attending the seminary. He was consid¬ 
ered the most learned boy at St. Louis’ college, and 
his authority was sufficient to put an end to any 


REV. MICHAEL OTT, O.S.B. 


85 


dispute that might arise among the students. 
Many a pleasant hour did this jolly trio spend 
together, and many an innocent but instructive 
trick did they play on those of their fellow-students 
who thought themselves more clever than the rest. 
For, though William, Fred, and Robert were good 
boys, yet they were no mopes, and when things 
were becoming too monotonous they knew how to 
stir up a little diversion. 

William was a voracious reader. There were 
few books in the college library that he had not 
either read completely or used as reference for 
composition or debate. During the preceding vaca¬ 
tion he had ransacked the public library of his 
town for books treating on evolution, a subject in 
which of late he had become deeply interested. 
William was unaware of the deadly poison con¬ 
tained in some of these books and began to read 
them. Captivated by their attractive style and 
rhetorical pomp, his unsophisticated mind strayed 
farther and farther from the path of truth. His 
intellect was not yet sufficiently developed to dis¬ 
tinguish between high-sounding phrases and solid 
arguments, between groundless hypotheses and real 
facts. Before vacation was over, William’s mind 
was indoctrinated in many principles of material- 


86 


MARY’S PRAYER 


istic evolution. He did not yet understand that 
evolution, as held by materialists, is incompati¬ 
ble with the principles of Christianity, else his 
Catholic heart would have rebelled at the outset. 
Shortly before returning to college in September, 
he chanced upon a book entitled “The Catholic 
Church and Modern Progress.” This book finally 
brought about his great temptation. At first he 
was somewhat shocked at the hateful picture of 
scientific sluggishness under which the Catholic 
Church was represented; but the charming style 
of the author soon engrossed Willianfis mind and 
heart to such an extent that he gradually enter¬ 
tained doubts whether the Catholic Church did not 
indeed, as the author implied, attempt to stem the 
progress of enlightenment and keep the people in 
ignorance for her own aggrandizement. Though 
racked at times by religious scruples, his mind be¬ 
came a veritable hotbed of doubts. Has not the 
Catholic Church, he asked himself, always been an 
implacable enemy to every scientific progress ? 
Did not learning and civilization reach their low¬ 
est ebb when the world lay enthralled in the des¬ 
potic chains of the Church during the Middle 
Ages ? Did not science and letters advance in pro¬ 
portion as the world shook off more and more the 


REV. MICHAEL OTT, O.8.B. 


87 


shackles of the Church? Did not the Protestant 
Reformation give a most telling impetus to the 
spread of civilization, and did not the world, after 
it became free from the fetters of ecclesiasticism, 
continue her onward march of enlightenment, until 
it reached the climax of intellectual and material 
perfection in our own age? 

Thus tossed about on a turbulent ocean of doubt, 
William drifted farther and farther from the sav¬ 
ing rock of faith. He returned to college in Sep¬ 
tember, but was no longer the jolly boy of a year 
ago. During the recreation hours he generally 
managed to walk alone, or find a lonely spot in the 
neighboring woods, where he would stealthily read 
the books that were poisoning his heart and mind. 
He even avoided the company of his old friend 
Fred Hawkins, who felt deeply wounded when 
he noticed that William shunned his society. Rob¬ 
ert Douglas, who might perhaps have dispelled the 
doubts that were racking William’s mind, had en¬ 
tered the seminary and could no longer associate 
with him. By some stratagem or other he re¬ 
mained away from the sacraments without being 
detected either by the chaplain or by his discipli¬ 
narians. At times he felt that he ought to reveal 
his spiritual condition to Father Cuthbert, his 


88 


MARY’S PRAYER 


former confessor, who had always taken a deep 
interest in his temporal and spiritual welfare, but 
he could never summon up sufficient courage to 
lay bare to him his condition of mind and heart. 
His readings on materialistic evolution entangled 
him more and more in the meshes of scepticism. 
Accepting the evolutionistic hypothesis as a con¬ 
cluded fact, he argued that if the world as it ex¬ 
ists to-day was produced by an unceasing process 
of evolution from primeval matter which has al- 
ways existed, there is no reason why we should 
have recourse to a Creator, and if there is no 
Creator, this world, of which we form a part, is in 
no way dependent on a supermundane cause. If 
there is a God—a supposition that can never be 
proved—we are nothing to Him, and hence He can 
be nothing to us. Of course, William was not yet 
a confirmed atheist, but he had already entered the 
hazy regions of agnosticism, which lie at the very 
brink of atheism. 

In this sad state of mind and heart William 
came home for the Christmas holidays. It has 
been already mentioned how grieved his pious sis¬ 
ter Mary was when she heard of William’s de¬ 
termination not to become a priest. For a long 
time she argued with her brother, and finally ex- 


REV. MICHAEL OTT, O.8.B. 


89 


torted from him the promise to think seriously over 
the matter and after a day or two inform her of 
the result. Mary herself, her eyes still bathed in 
tears, hastened to the little church of the town, 
which was only a few steps from her home. Here 
she prayed a long while before the Blessed Sacra¬ 
ment, then suddenly rising from her knees, she 
went to the statue of the Sacred Heart, knelt be¬ 
fore it and sobbed aloud. Raising her trembling 
arnis in prayer, she looked most pitifully up to the 
kind face of her Saviour and asked Him for help in 
her deep affliction. “What have I done, my sweet 
Jesus/' she sobbed, “that my dear Willie no longer 
wishes to be a priest? If I have offended your 
loving Heart, I beg pardon; only come, let us be 
friends again, my sweet Jesus; tell Willie that you 
want him to become a priest." After pleading with 
Jesus in this childlike manner for a long time, she 
went home, her grief somewhat relieved. 

The following night William had a dream. 
He thought he was a passenger on a large steamer. 
Leaning against the bulwarks, he looked far into 
the distance where the sky seemed to unite with 
the ocean. He was deeply absorbed in his usual 
evolutionistic trend of thoughts, when suddenly 
the ship gave a jerk that caused William to fall 


90 


MARY’S PRAYER 


fiat on the deck. Passengers came rushing from 

their cabins, fear written on their faces, to learn 

whether the ship was in danger. It had struck an 

immense derelict that was floating about a foot 

beneath the ocean’s surface. The foreship was fast 

sinking, a sign that a hole must have been forced 

into the lower part of the bow. Panic-stricken 

women were shrieking wildly and thronging in 

disorderly fashion toward the lifeboats. The shout- 
*/ 

ing voice of the captain, commanding the passen¬ 
gers to remain quiet, was drowned in the clamor of 
women and children who ran about the deck 
frantically calling upon the sailors to save them. 
The lifeboats were lowered into the sea and filled 
far beyond their capacity, but there was scarcely 
room in the boats for half the passengers. Will¬ 
iam, who had never lost his presence of mind, 
grasped a life-buoy and jumped overboard, trying 
his utmost to swim as far as possible away from 
the horrible scene, lest he should be drawn into the 
vortex which would be created by the sinking 
steamer. Scarcely was he out of the line of dan¬ 
ger, when he saw one lifeboat after the other cap¬ 
size and throw its human burden into the seething 
ocean. The steamer itself was almost level with 
the water, and now, together with the shrieking 


REV. MICHAEL OTT, O.S.B. 


91 


mass of humanity that were still clinging to it, it 
suddenly sank into its watery grave. The silence 
of death spread over the sunken steamer. William, 
resting on his safety buoy, was alone on the vast 
ocean, doomed to die a miserable death unless 
picked up by a passing vessel. Now for the first 
time he realized the awful condition of his soul. 
If he were left to die thus, there would be no 
merciful, but a just and avenging God to pass 
judgment upon him. He already saw the abyss 
of hell open before his eyes, when the mast of a 
large ship became visible on the distant horizon. 

William’s heart began to throb at the sudden 
hope of safety. Unconsciously he uttered a prayer 
of thanks to that God whose existence he had re¬ 
cently begun to doubt. The majestic steamer ap¬ 
proached nearer and nearer. William was struck 
at the brightness of the hull and the distinctness 
with which he could see everything on board the 
ship, although it was still about two miles distant. 
A large white flag with a red cross in the middle 
flaunted from the mainmast and, above the cross, 
William was able to make out the Latin inscription 
in golden letters, IN HOC SIGNO VINCES , “By 
this sign thou wilt conquer/’ There were only two 
living beings on deck. These two, however, cast 


92 


MARY’S PRAYER 


a spell of wonder and amazement over William. 
The one was surrounded with a glamour of super¬ 
natural brightness, which, despite the distance, 
dazzled the eves of William, while the other was 

xJ ' 

a little girl, kneeling before the figure of bright¬ 
ness and stretching out her arms toward it as if 
pleading for mercy. Now the girl pointed with 
her little hand toward William, then embraced 
the feet of the bright figure, making it plain to 
William that she was imploring his safety. Sud¬ 
denly the ship swung around and made straight 
for William. How great was his surprise to see 
that the little girl was his own dear sister Mary. 
The bright figure entered a lifeboat which appeared 
to descend into the sea of its own accord, and with¬ 
out the help of oars glided swiftly over the waves 
toward William. He raised his arms to grasp the 
side of the boat—when he awoke from his sleep. 
Through the thin wall which separated his sleep¬ 
ing-room from that of his sister, he heard her sob¬ 
bing prayer: “0 my sweet Jesus, tell Willie that 
you want him to become a priest.” 

William was bewildered. Could it be that God 
had sent him this dream as an answer to Mary’s 
prayers, or was it all a mere coincidence? There 
was no more sleep for William that night. His 


REV. MICHAEL OTT, O.S.B. 


9 a 


mind was racked with accusing thoughts of his 
past conduct, and his aroused conscience upbraided 
him severely for the religious scepticism which had 
almost plunged his immortal soul into eternal per¬ 
dition. He was at a loss what to do, for his w r hole 
mind was so saturated with the false principles 
of materialism, which he had imbibed from in¬ 
discriminate reading, that it was difficult to free 
himself entirely from them. 

The greater part of the morning William re¬ 
mained alone in his room,thinking over his wonder¬ 
ful dream. While absorbed in his reflections, there 
came a sharp rap at his door and, before he could 
compose himself sufficiently, Robert Douglas had 
entered and was shaking hands with his friend 
and making fun at finding him deeply engrossed in 
study when he ought to be enjoying his vacation. 
“My folks have gone to California for the winter 
months, and I am here to spend a few days of my 
Christmas vacation with you, provided, of course, 
that I am welcome.” 

“Never more welcome than now,” said William; 
“in fact, I have been wishing for you this very 
moment. I am in an awful condition. I have been 
reading some books of late that have caused me to 
doubt whether the Catholic Church is in reality 


94 


MARY’S PRAYER 


what Catholics think her to be. I have read that 
she has been an inveterate enemy to progress, and 
that Catholics would find no difficulty in proving 
her ‘immutability’ in this respect. In another 
book I found some excellent reasons for holding 
that the world had never been created and that its 
present state is merely a stage in its gradual proc¬ 
ess of evolution, which has been going on from all 
■eternity.” 

William also related the dream he had the pre¬ 
ceding night and how he awoke, overhearing the 
prayer of his sister. Douglas was shocked at the 
un-Catholic and un-Christian views of William and 
impressed upon him that his remarkable dream was 
an unmistakable warning of God, whose signal in¬ 
tervention was undoubtedly due to the innocent 
prayer of his pious sister Mary. 

“It is all bosh,” as his learned friend Douglas 
expressed himself, “to say that the Church has al¬ 
ways been an enemy to progress. The same ac¬ 
cusation has been made and refuted a thousand 
times. Did not the greatest thinkers the world 
has ever seen live during the Middle Ages ? Have 
you never heard of the Venerable Bede, Alcuin, 
Lanfranc, Abelard, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, 
Peter Lombard, Albert the Great, St. Thomas, St. 


REV. MICHAEL OTT, O.S.B . 


95 


Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, Dante, and a host of 
other intellectual giants, all of whom lived during 
the Ages of Faith ? Where are your modern think¬ 
ers that can compare with these? Further: look 
at the great inventions made while the rule of the 
Church was supreme. Windmills were invented in 
650, organs in 653, Greek fire in 670, carpet-weav¬ 
ing in 720, clocks in 650, linen paper in 1100, 
music as a science in 1124, the mariner's compass 
in the twelfth century, gunpowder in 1278, spec¬ 
tacles in 1285, engraving in 1410, oil-painting in 
1415, the printing-press in 1436. Where in the 
world of our day is there anything that can com¬ 
pare in architectural skill with the magnificent 
European cathedrals and other structures dedicated 
to God, nearly all of which were built in the Mid¬ 
dle Ages ? Where is your modern painter or archi¬ 
tect that does not dwindle into insignificance be¬ 
side Giotto, Ghirlandajo. Michaelangelo, Fra An¬ 
gelico, and the many other masters of the brush 
and the chisel who flourished under the papal rule ? 
Can you in the face of these facts still believe that 
the Church was ever opposed to progress and civil¬ 
ization? As to the impetus which the Protestant 
Revolution is often said to have given to the spread 
of learning and civilization, let me tell you that 


96 


MARY’S PRAYER 


this intellectual impetus had been prepared by 
events anterior to the fatal schism, and was al¬ 
ready well on its way when the Protestant revolt 
began. In Italy the revival of art and letters be¬ 
gan as early as the thirteenth century, and from 
there it gradually spread over the whole of Europe. 
Hence the period preceding the religious revolt is 
generally called by the name of Renaissance. The 
world is in a state of continuous progress, and in 
the beginning of the sixteenth century, owing to 
the recent invention of movable types, it was ready 
to make a gigantic step forward. That the world 
continued to make progress at that time was, there¬ 
fore, not on account of, but rather in spite of, the 
Protestant revolution. Even well-meaning Prot¬ 
estant writers admit that the Reformation was 
rather a hindrance than an impetus to civilization. 
I need not dwell any longer on this point. Every 
Catholic and many Protestant historians will bear 
out my statements.” 

William’s eyes began to open. He saw how 
grievously he had sinned in giving credence to the 
malicious calumnies of bigoted and unscrupulous 
historians. With tears in his eyes he thanked 
Douglas for dispelling his doubts; but Douglas 
was too humble to take the praise to himself. “Be- 


REV. MICHAEL OTT, O.S.B. 


97 


lieve me, William,” he said, "it is not I who have 
done this for you; it is your loving sister Mary, 
who by her pious prayers has prepared your heart 
to accept the truth. But there is one more point 
that I must make clear to you. You told me that 
the existence of the world, as it now is, can be ex¬ 
plained by a process of evolution, without any re¬ 
course to a Creator. If you never said anything 
absurd before, you have surely done it now. Be¬ 
fore there can be any evolution, there must cer¬ 
tainly be that something in which the evolution 
takes place. Hence, before the world could begin 
its process of evolution, the world itself had to ex¬ 
ist in some shape or other. It is not, indeed, neces¬ 
sary that any time should have intervened between 
the beginning of the world and the beginning of 
its evolution, in other words, the two may have 
come into existence simultaneously; but evolution, 
being an accident, always requires a substance,in 
which it exists. If that substance was not created, 
then it existed from all eternity; and if evolution 
was not created, then it also existed from all eter¬ 
nity. The evolution of that substance has, under 
your supposition, been going on from all eternity. 
And if a process of evolution has been going on in 
the world from all eternity, then the absurd conclu- 


98 


MARY’S PRAYER 


sion will be forced upon us that the world long ago 
reached the climax of perfection and, hence, has been 
at a standstill ever since. Now, William, are you 
satisfied with the evolution of my argumentation ?” 

“Perfectly,” replied William, “I was a fool to 
let myself be inveigled into the most absurd con¬ 
clusions by a few baseless statements of bigoted 
historians and a few coarse sophisms of godless 
scientists. The lesson I have learned to-day I 
shall never forget. Thank God that He sent you 
at a time when I needed you most. My mind is 
now settled and my heart is at peace. This after¬ 
noon I shall go to confession. Pray for me, Rob¬ 
ert, that God may pardon my horrible sin.” 

Mary had spent the morning in prayer. She was 
kneeling before the crucifix in her room when 
William’s familiar rap at the door put an end to 
her prayer. “Mary, dear,” exclaimed William 
while entering the room, “I am again determined 
to become a priest, and your prayers have done it.” 

He then related his dream, not omitting that, 
when he awoke, he heard her prayer through the 
thin wall. Mary’s joy knew no bounds; she em¬ 
braced her brother and, with tears of gladness in 
her beautiful blue eyes, she said, “I knew my dear 
Jesus would not refuse me.” 


The Captain’s Christmas 

BY MARY T. WAGGAMAN 

Christmas again! A white Christmas, a real 
Christmas, a Christmas of snapping frost and glit¬ 
tering ice and mantling snow, a Christmas that 
was Christmas, and not a dull, languorous holiday 
masquerading under that name! An old jolly, 
merry, nose-nipping Christmas at last! Captain 
Jack Jennings, back from a dozen years or more 
of exile in equatorial climes, rubbed his hands to¬ 
gether joyfully as he felt the old tingling touch of 
the frost. He was a big, brown, hardy man, with 
kind blue eyes that had grown keen in searching 
the troubled sea of life, and a mouth that, stern- 
set at need, could still relax into the smile of a 
boy. 

His steamer had just dropped into dock in time 
to catch the full tone of the coming holiday, and 
though almost a stranger now in this great city, 
the captain strode along the busy streets with the 
thrill of the Christmas spirit roused in his breast 
as it had not been roused for years. In the soft 


100 


THE CAPTAIN’S CHRISTMAS 


languor of summer lands and seas he had felt him¬ 
self almost an old man, but there was an electric 
touch in this clear, bracing, wintry air that made 
the years drop from him like an outworn garment. 

“By George !” was his mental soliloquy, “it makes 
an old chap of forty odd feel like a boy again! 
The boy that used to burst out with a whoc'o from 
old St. Mark’s, and make a break for Merryvale. 
I’ll make a break for it now! It’s good to think 
of Molly and her kids safe in the old place, though 
I fear, from that last letter of hers, that Fenton is 
getting pretty restive there. Can’t make money 
enough, he says. Well, I’ve got enough to fix that, 
enough for all of them. I’ll telegraph—no, I 
won’t either. I’ll just drop in on them without 
warning, and give them a Christmas surprise. 
And I’ll go loaded down as a Christmas nrodigal 
should!” 

And Captain Jack proceeded to “load down” with 
the zest of a forty-year-old boy. The busy streets 
with their good-humored, bustling crowds, the 
shouts of the children, the calls of the fakirs vend¬ 
ing impossible bargains, the toot of the Christmas 
horns, the spicy breath of evergreens, all filled the 
heart of the returned exile with a new and keen 
delight. 


MARY T. WAGGAMAN 


101 


He bought everything—boxes of candy, baskets 
of fruit, bags of popcorn, and peanuts galore. He 
drifted into a great department store athrill with 
holiday life, and was soon lost in mazes beyond 
guidance of compass or chart. Not until he had 
invested in a fur-trimmed coat, a pink silk kimono, 
a patent washing-machine, and a huge grapho- 
phone, did he find himself at his intended goal— 
the great toy bazaar at the top of the building, 
where, bewildered by the glittering display, he 
looked helplessly around for guidance. A small 
boy of ten, leading a smaller sister through vistas 
of unattainable delight, drew near him. 

“Sonny,” said the captain, “suppose you had 
fifty dollars to spend for Christmas.” 

“Eh?” gasped the small boy, wondering for a 
moment if a Christmas fairy tale were coming 
true. 

“I mean,” corrected the captain hastily, “sup¬ 
pose I had fifty dollars to spend for some little kids 
like you, what should I buy?” 

“Fifty dollars!” The boy stared at this friendly 
speaking lunatic in open-eyed wonder. “Gee 
whizz!” 

“Won’t it be enough?” asked the captain, 
warned by memories of his purchases downstairs. 


102 


THE CAPTAIN’S CHRISTMAS 


“There’s six or seven of them—I don’t remember 
exactly how many-” 

“Enough!” said the small adviser. “Fifty dol¬ 
lars—for six or seven kids like me—all boys-” 

“Oh, no, no !” The captain made an effort to re¬ 
call Molly’s family record. “Both—mixed, you 
know.” 

“And you’re going to spend fifty dollars on 
them?” repeated the small speaker. “Je-ru-sa- 
lem! Why, Susie and me ain’t got but fifty cents 
apiece, and we’re going to buy everything—pres¬ 
ents, Christmas-tree, and all!” 

“Whew!” exclaimed Captain Jack, encouraged 
by such financiering. “Go ahead, then. Show me 
how to spend my money, and I’ll double yours.” 

It took a few minutes for Susie and her brother 
to realize this dazzling proposition, but when they 
did they went to work with a will, steering their 

client past all the pitfalls that awaited gilded 

% 

youth, and spending money where it would show 
and tell. French dolls, electrical toys, steam en¬ 
gines, and costly tea-sets were altogether beyond the 
young agents’ ken; but they plunged boldly into 
investments they understood. Dolls not too fine 
to play with, drums, horns, blocks, balls, skipping- 
ropes, skates, and sleds—all the impedimenta of 




MARY T. WAGGAMAN 


103 


the old-fashioned Santa Clans who lived before 
the days of steam and electricity, and had to count 
his dimes. 

When the contract was concluded to mutual 
satisfaction, the captain presented each of his de¬ 
lighted brokers with a big box of French candy, 
and, giving orders to have his purchases boxed and 
sent to the railroad station, felt he was ready for 
Christmas indeed. 

The tender glow of the fireside festival seemed 
to brighten within his breast as the train swept 
him next day over the snowy hills on his way to 
his boyhood’s home. The fair white mantle of the 
Christmas snow veiled all change of time and 
scene; the years vanished, old memories stood out 
fresh and bright in rainbow hues. 

What riproaring, rollicking times they were, 
those old Christmas homecomings, with Tom 
Slevin, and Dick Burns, and half a dozen other col¬ 
lege fellows to share the fun! What shouting and 
laughing and horseplay on the train! What a wild 
burst from the cars when the station was reached! 
What a greeting to old Pinto waiting with the 
wagon to haul their trunks and boxes up the hills! 
Then the tramp through the woods by way of the 
short cut that led past Dick Burns’s house, where 


104 


THE CAPTAIN’S CHRISTMAS 


they always stopped for an hilarious moment to 
toss little rosy Bobby up in their arms and ask her 
which boy she loved best. And then on, on home, 
over the white, dazzling hills, Tom Slevin striking 
up in his deep baritone to let folks know they were 
coming! Big, honest Tom with his rich voice and 
true eyes and hearty handclasp—he had not seen 
or heard of Tom for years. Dick had married, so 
Molly had written, long ago. 

Mother and father, all that had made those old 
days so blessed, were gone. The old light of faith, 
hope, and love had grown dull. Far away in those 
strange tropic lands the captain had fought out his 
battle with sorrow and sin and temptation all 
alone- 

But he pushed all bitter memories away to-day 
with the glad optimism of reborn youth. Molly 
was left him—the gentle, clinging sister who, 
despite her foolish marriage to Will Fenton, had 
kept her hold on his heart. Molly was left him, 

and he was going home. 

* * * * * 

Captain Jack sprang from the train as it reached 
the little station. No Pinto was waiting now, but 
he ordered his Christmas boxes to be kept until 
called for, and strode away over the white hills 



MARY T. WAGGAMAN 


105 


with the glad step and heart of a boy. Up the old 
road, where he and Tom Slevin had raced and 
scrambled through the woods, where the trees, 
grown higher and heavier, rose into lofty archways 
of crystalline white, past the old Burns place, 
where he almost expected to see little five-year-old 
Bobbie swinging on the gate, watching, as she 
always did, for the boys “coming home/’ 

And now the captain’s great heart seemed to 
pulse with a louder beat, and there was an odd 
thrill in every seasoned nerve, for there, across 
the south meadow, arose the moss-grown chim¬ 
ney, the ivy-wreathed gables of dear old Merry- 
vale. 

But the boyish shout that rose to his lips sud¬ 
denly died there. What was this ? The west wing 
down, the shutters hanging loose from their broken 
windows, the pillared porch, where his mother’s 
roses had climbed, propped rudely into place. 
The first shock of dismay was followed by a hot 
wave of indignation as the captain recalled the 
generous checks sent to the careless holders of this 
dear domain. He sprang to the open front door 
and stood speechless on the threshold. The great 
hall was a wild confusion of heaped furniture, and 
two sturdy colored men, guffawing in Christmas 


106 


THE CAPTAIN’S CHRISTMAS 


glee, were apparently dismantling the ruined 
home. 

“What—what in thunder is this?” roared the 
captain as soon as he could find breath and words, 
for he felt like one standing by the desecrated tomb 
of all that he held dear. 

“Sah?” was the startled exclamation, as one of 
the seeming ghouls paused with a familiar rock¬ 
ing-chair on his shoulders. 

“Where is Mrs. Fenton ?” asked the captain 
fiercely. 

“Mrs. Fenton, sah, Mrs. Will Fenton—she dun 
gone long time ago—gone to Injeanny, sah.” 

“Then what the thunder and lightning are you 
tearing things up for like this ?” 

“It’s fur de meeting, sah—de Christmas meet¬ 
ing,” was the stammered answer, for the captain’s 
blazing eye and quarterdeck tone were enough to 
terrorize indeed. “De parson and de school¬ 
teacher, dey sent us hyah, sah, to cl’ar t’ings 
out.” 

“Clear things out,” roared the captain, as he 
caught sight of his mother’s work-table topping a 
pile of furniture in the parlor door. “The parson 
and school-teacher sent you here to clear things 
out! Out of my house, my home ! Why, you— 


MARY T. WAGGAMAN 


107 


you infernal black rascals, if you don’t make tracks 
off the place this minute I’ll clear you out in a way 
you’ll remember; ay, and your parson, and your 
school-teacher, and the whole crew of you. Off 
with you, offl” shouted the captain, in the tone 
that had outthundered tropic tempests, “off with 
you or I’ll break every bone in your black skins!” 
and the speaker caught up a massive mahogany 
curtain-pole from the debris in the hall, and bran¬ 
dished it threateningly. 

“Yes, sah; yes, sah!” and the terrified colored 
men scrambled hastily out of his reach. “De 
school-teacher, Miss Barbara, dar she is coming 
now-” 

The captain paused, breathless, bewildered, as 
the sound of sweet, silvery voices broke upon the 
storm of his passion, and round the curve of the 
box-bordered path came the very spirit of Christ¬ 
mas itself—a woman, a fair girl woman, with a 
Madonna, face and smiling eyes, and soft, rippling 
hair, and clinging to her hands, her skirts, pressing 
all about her in laughing, happy trust, children of 
all ages, all sizes; merry boys and fair-haired girls, 
and toddling little ones, their chubby hands and 
arms laden with spoil rifled from the winter woods, 
cedar and crow foot and holly berries, while in 



3 08 


THE CAPTAIN’S CHRISTMAS 


the rear of the procession two sturdy lads dragged 
a big feathery pine. 

“Now we can set to work, children—all of you, 
little and big,” said the fair leader, as the pretty 
band neared the porch. “We’ll make wreaths and 
garlands and put up the tree and dress the house, 
and-•” 

“Don’t ye, Miss Barbara, don’t ye go up dar, 
miss!” two frightened voices broke in upon the 
speaker. “Dar’s de despritest man you ever seen 
a r’aring and a tearing up on de porch. ’Lows he’s 
gwine to bust ebberybody’s head dat comes nigh 
him. Got de curtain pole ready to do it to you 
and de parson and ebberybody, miss!” 

Sambo paused in his terrified speech, for Miss 
Barbara had lifted her soft, bright, startled eyes 
to the figure on the porch, the brown-faced man 
who stood there, fierce, bewildered and desolate. 

“Jack,” she cried, and the sweet delighted voice 
seemed to pierce the mists of twenty years. “Oh! 

it must be Jack-” The captain stared in 

amazement at the fair vision that came forward 
with shining eyes and outstretched hands of joy¬ 
ous welcome. “Oh, you don’t know me, of course; 
how could you?” she laughed, “but I’m Bobbie 
Burns, little Bobbie that used to watch for you at 




MARY T. WAGGAMAN 


109 


the gate—little Bobbie you used to swing up on 
your shoulder! Dear, dear old Jack, welcome 
home !” 

And then—well, the captain declared ever after¬ 
ward he lost track of things, past, present, and fu¬ 
ture, and Bobbie took command of the ship for¬ 
evermore. Molly, the faithless Molly, the shiftless 
Fenton, the kids, all drifted away into unknown 
seas, while Bobbie explained everything. How 
Fenton, who, as every one knew, had been most un¬ 
lucky in all his past ventures, had had a good place 
offered him in Indiana, that he must take at once; 
how Molly had to leave very suddenly three months 
ago, and had put the old home in Bobbie’s care; 
how Father Tom was coming down next day to say 
the midnight Mass — “Father Tom Slevin, you 
know. Jack-” 

“Tom Slevin? Old Tom a priest?” gasped the 
captain incredulously. 

“Why, yes, for years; ever since I was a little 
girl,” smiled Bobbie, “and we thought you knew. 
Jack, my little schoolhouse is so small and shabby 
that it would be so much better and sweeter to have 
our Christmas this year at Merryvale. Molly left 
me the keys until you should come home. But, 
of course, if you object,” added Bobbie, suddenly 



110 


THE CAPTAIN’S CHRISTMAS 


realizing that this quiet, grave listener was not the 
boy Jack of old. 

“Object!” burst forth the captain, with all the 
boy Jack’s impetuosity, “good Lord, no! I 
thought, you see—I thought I was coming home 
for Christmas. I haven’t had a real Christmas 
for twenty years. I had been thinking of it, 
dreaming of it, planning, spending for it, and 
when I saw, as I supposed, those two black rascals 
taking possession of the house for some sort of a 
negro shindy, well, I went wild for a moment with 
the hurt and pain. But you and Tom—and the 
children here”—the speaker’s voice grew husky— 
“it’s yours forever if you want it, Bobbie; yours to 
do with as you please.” 

“Then we’ll have Christmas here again,” she 
said softly—“Christmas sweet and holy and happy, 
if not so merry as in the long ago.” 

And they had Christmas indeed. All hands 
went to work under Bobbie’s command. The old 
house, that was really not such a wreck as it 
seemed, bloomed out into a very bower of greenery. 
The long parlors were transformed into a chapel, 
Bobbie’s deft touch arranging the portable altar, 
the candles, the vestments, of which the pretty 
schoolmistress had been sacristan for years. While 



MARY T. WAGGAMAN 


111 


across the hall in the great dining-room, scene of 
many a Christmas revel, Captain Jack led the big 
boys to vigorous work. The tree was lifted into 
place, the boxes brought gleefully up from the rail¬ 
road and burst open. What were Molly or Molly’3 
kids now, with Bobbie’s forty little pupils watch¬ 
ing for Santa Claus? How the captain blessed 
Susie and Susie’s brother as he saw how their reck¬ 
less purchases weighed down the branches of that 
Christmas tree! The fur-trimmed coat, the wash¬ 
ing-machine, the pink kimono, were reserved as 
Hew Year’s gifts for the distant Molly, but all else, 
even the graphophone, which was set up to dis¬ 
course mysterious melodies in the corner, all 
else went to make Christmas a Christmas in¬ 
deed. 

And when in the white stillness of the Holy 
Night the captain found himself kneeling by Bob¬ 
bie’s side at his old hearthstone, while the starry 
gleam of the Christmas tapers fell upon the snowy 
altar, and Father Tom, the dear old Tom of old, 
stood there in his priestly robes, a tender guide to 
the blessed paths from which he had strayed since 
the long ago, there was a mist in the captain’s eyes 
through which shimmered strange Christmas rain¬ 
bows. 


112 


THE CAPTAIN’S CHRISTMAS 


The old Christmas anthem thrilled long silent 
depths in his soul. 

“Venite adoremus, 

Venite adoremus, 

Venite adoremus in Bethlehem/’ 

sang Bobbie and her childish choir; and the cap¬ 
tain bowed his head before the little Babe of Beth¬ 
lehem with the old faith and the old love. Ah, it 
was Christmas indeed for Captain Jack, a Christ¬ 
mas beyond all his hopes and dreams, though it 
was not until six months later, when the June roses 
were blooming again over the rebuilt porch, and 
Merryvale was standing fair and strong and beau¬ 
tiful under its bowering trees, that he dared to put 
the hope born on that Christmas night into trem¬ 
bling, eager words. 

“There is a gulf of years between us, I know, 
Bobbie; but if you could take an old man’s heart 
and life and love-” 

“Old!” she laughed up into his face, her sweet 
e}^es radiant. “Jack, you old! You will never be 
anything at heart but a boy—the boy I used to 
watch for on the old farm-gate—the big boy that 
I loved best of all!” 



My Sister’s Secret 

BY KARL KLAXTON 

The summer warmth of the apple-scented air 
puzzled the swallows on the roofs. “We are leav¬ 
ing this paradise too soon,” they twittered. 

“Fear not, little birds,” I said; “you fly to bluer 
sky and brighter sunshine. But I am parting from, 
all that is dear to me.” 

At thirteen, I was known as a strange lad. Boy¬ 
ish games had no charm for me; my only playmate 
was my little sister, Dorothy. Caring naught that 
other boys nicknamed me “Dolly’s nursemaid,” I 
rambled with her through wood and lane, or over 
the bare brown moor, dreaming to the tune of her 
childish prattle. Down in the glen where the pool 
reflected the gold on the bracken and the amber- 
russet turn of the leafage, the music of some un¬ 
seen world came to me, and Dorothy would pause 
in her chatter to the flowers and wonder why I 
listened. But when I tried to tell her, she went 
on chattering again, for my thoughts were beyond 
her little ken. 

Then my father found those verses of mine. 


114 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


“No wonder,” he stormed at my schoolmaster, 
“he has no head for figures! Rubbish like this 
will entirely unfit him for business.” 

Mr. Williams read the verses attentively. 
“Faulty enough,” was his comment, “but full of 
true feeling, and a sense of the music of words. 
Art, not business, will be that boy’s calling.” 

This glimpse of an uncomprehended talent 
failed to convince my father. Business was for 
him the be-all and end-all of life. 

“Bah!” he snapped to me, “Mr. Williams gives 
you too little to do. Moping about and coddling 
that little girl have made you a sentimental young 
fool. I must find a strict boarding-school where 
the verse-nonsense will be birched out of you.” 

My first week at Woodspeen House School was 
indescribable. The wrench of parting, the roughs 
ness of my companions, the fear that Dorothy must 
be fretting for me, made life seem unendurable. 
But mother’s first letter brought double comfort; 
it enclosed a smudged little scrawl from my sister. 
As I folded it the outlook of existence brightened. 
The boys were tired of bullying me and agreed that 
I had stood the ordeal creditably, so I was able to 
reply that I was recovering my spirits and settling 
down to my new surroundings. An attachment to 


KARL KLAXTON 


115 


a boy of my own age more than reconciled me to 
my lot. Like me, Stanley Glynn was a newcomer 
and very homesick. A common need of sympathy 
drew us together. 

Disraeli’s description of the intensity of school¬ 
boy friendships is no exaggeration. Jonathan’s 
affection for David, whom he “loved as his own 
soul,” was no greater than mine for my new friend. 
A school-boy is usually shy of speaking of his sister 
to his chums; a fear of being teased will even keep 
him from telling her name. But I found no diffi¬ 
culty in talking of Dorothy to Stanley. Her age, 
her height, her dress, the tints of her hair and 
eyes, the sweetness of her smile when pleased, her 
sulky little pout when thwarted, the clinging of 
her soft bare arms round her brother’s neck when 
she wanted something against his better judgment, 
were all in turn detailed to him, and his keen in¬ 
terest prompted further confidences. In time I 
learned to show him her letters, and he begged me 
to send her his “love.” A climax was reached 
when I obtained her photo for him. 

“I will marry that little girl,” he said. 

“Oh, Stanley,” I cried, “do you mean that ?” 

“Yes,” he answered, “I mean it.” 

Dorothy married to Stanley! The vision started 


116 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


a train of fancy which became the dream of my 
life. 

***** 

In our studies Stanley and I had few tastes in 
common. But one talent we shared, a spark of 
divine fire—a real love and aptitude for music. 
Father objected at first to my continuing the sub¬ 
ject, but finally yielded to mothers persuasion. 
Our music master was a German, Dr. Lange, whose 
distinguished career had been cut short by ill- 
health. Years of vain endeavor with brainless or 
idle boys had wearied him of teaching, and he had 
sung his Nunc Dimittis long ago. But his first 
lesson to us filled his veins with fresh vigor. His 
listlessness vanished, his face glowed, his eyes 
sparkled. In a month his once wrinkled bald head 
was as smooth as a new billiard ball. He reminded 
one of a cabhorse which, having seen service in the 
cavalry, quickens its trot at the sound of a stirring 
war march. At last the pupils of his dreams had 
come, to make his life worth living. 

We had already mastered the initial difficulties 
of technique; Dr. Lange taught us its deeper mys¬ 
teries—the mysteries of tone and color. W T hen we 
could interpret the “Pathetique” sonata of Beet- 


KARL KLAXTON 


117 


hoven to his satisfaction, he gleefully predicted 
fame for us. 

I shall never forget his look of agony when I 
first played the Adagio movement to him. 

“Where is your soul, boy?” he exclaimed, grip¬ 
ping my arm fiercely. 

My feelings were hurt. That piece had gained 
me most applause on Speech Days at my last 
school. 

“Don’t you see,” he went on, “that that melody 
voices all the tragedy of a ruined life? Your soft, 
namby-pamby sweetness means nothing. You play 
it, too, as if it were a solo, and its setting merely 
an accompaniment. It must be one with the set¬ 
ting, yet struggle against it, in hopeless effort to 
get free. You should express both the struggle and 
its hopelessness. Listen.” 

He took my place, and, as he played, I heard the 
throbbing of a soul, no woman’s soul, but that of 
a strong man—a soul made for heaven, but chained 
by circumstances to earth. That crushing of celes¬ 
tial yearning by earthly environment was too much 
for me. I burst into tears. 

“What,” I cried, “has taught you how to play it 
like that?” 

“A life of ambitions,” he answered sadly, “never 


118 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


realized. If failure beyond your control ever 
teaches you the tragedy of life, you will play it 
like that, too.” 

After a while he turned our thoughts to com¬ 
position. No mere slave of mechanical theory, he 
taught us that the possibilities of sound are limit¬ 
less. As a painter sees in the aspects of Nature in¬ 
finite combinations of color, so he saw in them 
boundless material for exquisite tone-pictures. On 
holidays we wandered with him over hill and dale, 
seeing with his eyes and hearing with his ears. 
The promise of life in the blue of a May morn¬ 
ing ; the blush of the western clouds when the sun¬ 
rise wakes them; the shimmer of the rainbow, like 
the smile of a girl through her tears; the sparkle 
of the sea at afternoon; the ripple of the breeze 
across the sunlit corn; the kiss of the falling leaf 
to the shrinking rosebud; the dainty bow of the 
silver-birch, like that of a satin-robed countess; 
the solemn gray of ivy-clad church towers; the 
sound of bells stealing sweetly o’er darkened fields; 
the murmur of streams; the love-note of birds; the 
whispers of sweethearts; the mocking laughter of 
girls: all were expressed in the language of har¬ 
mony, counterpoint, and fugue. 

There was a great difference in the nature of our 


EARL ELAXTON 


119 


talents. Though possessing quite a genius for har¬ 
mony, Stanley lacked inspiration for melody. Pro¬ 
vided with an air, he would put it in a setting rich 
and deep; but he could rarely find a good melody 
for himself. To me, on the other hand, melody 
came always; Dr. Lange declared that I heard 
angels* harps everywhere. But I was compara¬ 
tively weak at harmony, almost as much below 
Stanley as I was superior to him in melody. This 
difference should be remembered, as on it my story 
turns. 

Peacefully the years of study and friendship 
glided away. My dreams helped our music to bind 
us together; every picture suggested by sound con¬ 
tained a little girlish figure. Only once had Stan¬ 
ley seen Dorothy, when his way to his relatives for 
the vacation lay through our station. She had 
reached the tomboy stage; her capers of delight, 
which advertised the brevity of her frocks, threw 
to the winds my counsels on ladylike behavior. 
But Stanley saw only the merry, smiling face, the 
original of the portrait in his pocketbook. Short 
as was the stop of the train, he found time to pick 
her up and kiss her. 

At times my absorption in music made my 
father restive; he had no other son to succeed him 


120 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


in his business. How I envied Stanley, who was 
going next year to Leipsic to study music as a pro¬ 
fession ! But just when Dr. Lange’s pleading 
promised to be successful my hopes were dashed to 
the ground. Father died suddenly, and mother, 
who was an invalid, at once began to pine. I was 
only just in time to assure the latter that I would 
guard my sister faithfully. 

“Give her,” she said, “to no one who will not 
make her happy.” 

The thought of Stanley made the promise an 
easy one. 

^ ^ 

fp 

People were surprised at the success with which 
I filled my father’s place. They need not have 
been; I had Dorothy to work for. I placed her— 
she was then fifteen—at the best school in the 
town, and saw her grow up a nice, well-educated 
girl. And pretty she was, too. The faultless oval 
of her face, the golden, wavy hair lying low on her 
broad, white forehead, the fair, clear skin like 
polished ivory, the pale, rose pink of her cheeks, 
the eyes like pools of sunny sky, all made up a pic¬ 
ture of beauteous innocence such as Romney would 
have delighted to paint. And when her hair was 


KARL KLAXTON 


121 


put up and her dresses were quite long, I saw in 
her a bride of whom even Stanley might be proud. 

Though forced now to treat music merely as a 
hobby, I still cherished musical ambitions. Sor¬ 
row had deepened my nature and strengthened my 
powers; the “song of angels/’ could I but hear it 
again, would yield me a melody above my previous 
efforts. I could take my time in setting the melody 
to harmony, not perhaps as good as Stanley 
Glynn’s, but, by dint of constant improvement, 
more than respectable at last. With my name on 
a piece above the ordinary run, some measure of 
musical fame might be mine. 

The inspiration for which I was waiting came to 
me all of a sudden. It was a wintry afternoon. 
The sky was threatening darkly, save toward the 
sunset, which, from beneath a bank of leaden-gray 
clouds, bathed the bare trees in a flood of crimson. 
A chill November wind swept through the woods, 
making the branches creak and moan and the dead 
leaves rustle mournfully. The bells in the old 
church tower were sounding a Sabbath chime; a 
solitary robin chinked a sad farewell to closing day. 
Then the voices of Nature whispered softly and 
weirdly; a tremble of sighs and sobs shook the air; 
a strain of hope blended the confused murmurs of 


122 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


weeping into delicious harmony. What was that 
tune? I knew—I had heard something like it in 
the great Masses for the Dead. It was the dirge 
of Nature dying, the requiem of Nature dead, 
plaintive and prayerful, pitched in a minor key, 
but ending with a burst of full, rich, major 
chords—a promise of Life to come. 

Rushing home to my room, I put my inspiration 
on paper. There it was—the melody of my hopes, 
a melody beyond my wildest dreams. With what 
love and devotion I toiled at it! Never quite satis¬ 
fied, changing it again and again, I watched its 
growth as a mother watches her child’s. For it 
was my child, the offspring of my brain and genius. 

At last, after four long years, came the news that 
Stanley was returning. He proposed to spend his 
first month in England with us. Eagerly I as¬ 
sured him of a loving welcome. I longed to see 
him again, longed to show him my composition, 
longed, most of all, to show him Dorothy, as fair 
and sweet a flower of maidenhood as Nature and 
grace could produce. 

“She lacks but one charm,” I thought, “the 
charm that is a woman’s crown of glory. May it 
come to her in the joy of loving and being loved by 
Stanley.” 


KARL KLAXTON 


123 


* * * * s)c 

What a flutter of excitement Dorothy was in! 
Every corner of the house was turned out; the 
best room was adorned beyond recognition; all 
that the mind of woman could devise was done in 
preparation for our guest. Meanwhile I was tor¬ 
tured by anxious fears. Might not Stanley be 
changed after years among new acquaintances in a 
foreign land? But the first warm greeting and 
grip of the hand set my mind at rest. In five min¬ 
utes Stanley was talking as if we had never been 
parted. Well might he start at the sight of Doro¬ 
thy ; the pretty child was budding into a beautiful 
woman. All through the evening his eyes followed 
her; they said that he remembered that meeting 
years ago at the station. She, as became her, was 
silent and shy, but her blushes told their own sweet 
tale. When she bade us good-night, I saw that 
my little sister had not a corner of her heart to 
call her own. 

Joyously that month flew by, that month of 
‘dove’s young dream.” From bud to blossom and 
blossom to fruit, the attachment ripened swiftly 
till even my housekeeper, who was more than half¬ 
blind, detected how matters stood. From morn till 
night the lovers roamed the woods, quite content 


124 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


that I was too busy to accompany them. And at 
evening we three would sit together, Stanley and 
I talking over dear old times, Dorothy listening 
with love-lit eyes. Now and then a word would be 
dropped that revealed how much a little girl had 
entered into our boyish hopes; and down would 
go her head, her cheeks the hue of rosy dawn. 

It was with much misgiving that I showed Stan¬ 
ley my composition. So dear to me was it that I 
dreaded an adverse verdict from him. Softly and 
lingeringly he played it through, and then turned 
round and looked at me. His silence was higher 
praise than words. 

“A gem!” he exclaimed at last. “The harmony 
needs retouching, but the idea and melody are 
beautiful. Don’t hurry with it; a piece like that 
should go before the world as perfect as art and 
hard work can make it. Show it to me again in 
six months’ time.” 

It was the last afternoon of Stanley’s visit, and 
I was reading alone in my study. From time to 
time I peeped through the window to see if the 
lovers were coming. At last they appeared in the 
shrubbery, where, as if there were no such thing 
in the world as tea, they stopped. Stanley was 
talking earnestly, Dorothy tracing figures in the 


KARL KLAXTON 


125 


gravel with her sunshade. When they came in her 
face was aglow, her lips warm with love’s first 
kiss. 

“She has promised to be my wife/’ Stanley ex¬ 
plained. “We can not fix the day yet; my position 
has first to be made. But she shall not wait very 
long.” 

Dorothy held up a finger encircled with a band 

of shining gold. I clasped her to my heart, almost, 

if not quite, as happy as she was. 

***** 

Slowly the roses in Dorothy’s cheeks faded, till 
none but white ones were left. Pale as marble, she 
wandered about the house like a statue, seeing 
nothing, hearing nothing, feeling only her heart’s 
bitter pain. The anguish in her face—she always 
looked ready to cry—was misery to me. In vain 
I would take her on my knee, stroke her bonny 
hair, and caress her as I had done when she was 
a child. I could give her no comfort, and she 
would sob and sob and sob till my own heart felt 
like breaking. It was no brother’s petting that she 
wanted, but the touch of a hand, the sunshine of a 
smile, the word of love from lips, far away. 

It is not only the sharp, sudden shock that 
breaks. The branch that is bent too long by the 


126 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


gale is broken as surely at last as the oak that is 
shivered by the storm’s first shock. Dorothy’s 
heart could not stand the bending of grief much 
longer. I can not dwell on the agony of our sus¬ 
pense. Winter came with its chilling blasts and 
draped the fields with snow; spring brought back 
the song of the thrush and the flowering of the 
violets. But not since the first month after his 
departure had one single letter come from Stanley. 

Dorothy would not hear of my going to see 
him. “He does not want me,” she moaned, and I 
could not but respect her pride. 

The pressing need of an interview with the firm 
with which I did most of my business placed me in 
a dilemma. The journey would occupy at least 
four days and—how T could I leave my sister for 
such a time ? My housekeeper insisted on my run¬ 
ning the risk. A faithful old servant, she had 
been Dorothy’s nurse, and was confident of her 
ability to take care of her. 

Unlooked-for difficulties prolonged my absence 
by a week, and I returned in anxious dread. But, 
to my surprise, Dorothy seemed to have recovered 
her health and spirits. Even the old rose-flush 
was in her cheeks. What had produced so startling 
a change ? Dorothy herself gave me no enlighten- 


KARL KLAXTON 


127 


ment. She welcomed me back with all her old 
gayety and with no trace of sadness on her face or 
in her manner. The very mystery of it all kept 
me from questioning her. I had heard of cases 
of partial loss of memory. Could the giving way 
of something in her brain have obliterated all 
memory of Stanley ? 

“Did any letter/’ I asked my housekeeper, “come 
from Mr. Glynn during my absence?” 

“Not to my knowledge/’ was the reply. 

I scanned her face, but saw no sign that she was 
concealing anything. 

“But Dolly is so altered,” I went on. 

“She is indeed, sir. The day after you went she 
started to brighten up, and she has not said a word 
about Mr. Glynn since. Before that she was 
always talking about him.” 

Dorothy’s calm did not last long; I soon ob¬ 
served her looking worried again. The look be¬ 
trayed not sorrow, but perplexity. Presently it 
became a look of fear. 

It seemed as if returning memory made her 
shrink from fuller recollection. Fervently I 
prayed that good news might forestall the re¬ 
awakening of her grief. Heaven answered my 
prayer. An envelope on my table one morning 


128 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


bore Stanley’s handwriting. It enclosed two tickets 
for a concert at Queen’s Hall; a programme an¬ 
nounced the debut of a pianist, Stanley Glynn, 
who was to play, together with a sonata of Beet¬ 
hoven, his own first published composition. In a 
moment all my resentment at his long silence van¬ 
ished. I joyfully rushed to Dorothy with his mes¬ 
sage. 

“Of course,” it ran, “you will both be there to 
hear me. Have taken rooms for you at Dixon’s. 
Will meet you there after the concert.” 

But, to my astonishment, she looked alarmed, 
like one who fears the discovery of some secret. 
Her forehead twitched nervously, she went pale 
as death. Gasping as if about to faint, she hur¬ 
ried from the room. 

***** 

It was the evening before the concert; I was 
discussing with my pipe the problem of Dorothy. 
Suddenly I thought of my melody. I had not 
touched or even looked at it since Stanley left us. 
I went to the drawer in which it had been put. 
The manuscript was gone. The room was in a 
whirl. I reeled with the rush of blood to my head, 
and clung to the table for support. Then two soft 


KARL KLAXTON 


129 


arms were flung round me, and Dorothy, crying 
and ghastly white, stared into my eyes. 

“Don’t be angry, Tom,” she sobbed. “I—I 
stole it.” 

Tenderly—who could be angry with Dorothy ?— 
I led her to my chair. “Now, little girl,” I said, 
“tell me all about it.” 

For answer she handed me a telegram from 
Stanley. 

“God bless you, Tom,” it said. “A thousand 
thanks.” The date showed that it had come while 
I was away. 

“I expected it,” she explained, “and in—inter¬ 
cepted it.” 

“But what,” I gasped, “had Stanley to thank 
me for ?” 

“Oh, Tom, I opened this letter. I took it from 
the postman, and saw that it was addressed to you. 
The suspense was killing me—and I could not 
wait till you came back. I thought that perhaps 
he had written to give me up.” 

“My uncle and aunt,” I read, “on whom I was 
dependent, had plans of their own for me. To 
secure their ward’s wealth for themselves, they 
meant me to marry her. I declared I would marry 
none but Dorothy, whereupon my uncle cut my 


130 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


name out of his will and even stopped my allow¬ 
ance. At first I did not care, as I had brought 
some compositions from Leipsic. But the pub¬ 
lishers would not take them; they wanted a ‘haunt¬ 
ing’ melody, and melody I had none. I offered 
them other pieces, only to be told that they were 
not original. 1 then ceased writing to you; I dared 
not encourage further a useless attachment. All 
hopes of success are gone now, so I must give up 
Dorothy. Could I only have written a melody like 
yours, all would have been well; but, as things are, 
I can not but accept a berth offered me by my 
cousin in New Zealand. You can imagine what 
this decision costs me. Poor little Dolly! Help 
her to forget me.” 

“So,” I said, when I had finished, “you sent him 
my melody.” 

“Yes—as if it came from you.” 

“You acted, dearie, just as I would have wished.” 

“But I ought not to have opened your letter.” 

“I don’t see how you could help doing so, since 
it came from Stanley. But why didn’t you tell me 
all this before?” 

“Oh, Tom, .all seemed right until the melody 
was actually posted. Then I thought of what it 
had been to you, the years of work you had spent 


KARL KLAXTON 


131 


on it, the hopes you had built on it. I meant to 
tell you, but when I tried to do so I couldn’t. And 
the longer I put it off the harder it seemed.” 

“I understand.” 

“Tom ?” 

“Yes, pet?” 

“Never tell Stanley that you did not send the 
melody yourself. I want him to think that you told 
me to do it.” 

I kissed her, and off she went to bed, happy as a 
child. 

I endured the opening items of the concert im¬ 
patiently. At last Stanley took his place at the 
piano. A little nervous, and with that touch of 
self-consciousness which sits so well on a new per¬ 
former, he started Beethoven’s “Pathetique” 
sonata. How divinely he played the Adagio move¬ 
ment!—not even Dr. Lange could have rendered 
it like that. He gave it a new meaning—where 
had he learned that note of resurrection ? The air 
now voiced a soul not bound down to earth, but 
rising heavenward, all difficulties conquered. 

A breathless hush ruled the hall as he began the 
piece announced as his own composition. It was 
my melody truly enough, the creation of my brain, 


132 


MY SISTER’S SECRET 


the love-work of three weary years. But the har¬ 
monies—such a flood of luscious sound, such subtle 
modulations, such unexpected chord-resolutions! 
Were I to slave for an eternity, I could never pro¬ 
duce anything like it. Still, the melody dominated 
everything, the melody pointed out the way to 
those wizard transitions of harmony, the melody 
was carrying Stanley Glynn to fame at a single 
bound. Dare I confess that as I looked round the 
hall, with its crowd of spellbound faces, I remem¬ 
bered that that melody was mine ? But Dorothy 
clutched my arm, and I saw her eyes riveted with 
love and pride on Stanley. That look stilled my 
heart; it reminded me that my sacrifice meant all 
the joy of her future life. 

The applause was deafening; the hall rang with 
cries for the composer. But Stanley did not re¬ 
turn. He had hurried to the hotel, and thither we 
followed him. For a minute not a word was 
spoken. Dorothy rushed into Stanley’s arms and 
forgot all past pain in the kiss that makes up for 
everything. Stanley handed me a printed copy of 
his piece. In brackets, under his name, appeared a 
statement that I was the author of the melody. 

Years have passed, and Stanley has made my 
sister very happy. They live close to me, and I 


KARL KLAXTON 


133 


see her joy. As for him, his blessedness is more 
than can be told, for Dorothy is the angel of his 
house. From time to time he and I have col¬ 
laborated, but he no longer needs my help. His 
own efforts have carried him from triumph to 
triumph. 

There is another little Dorothy now, with the 
same smiling eyes, the same golden curls, the same 
winning ways that her mother had at her age. She 
has just had her bath, and mamma has brought 
her in to kiss papa good-night. Stanley has his 
pet in his arms, and is making her laugh with the 
nonsense that children love so much at bedtime. 

“He seems/’ I whisper, “to have no trouble with 
melodies now.” 

“Baby and I,” answers Dorothy with arch grav¬ 
ity, “teach him all the melodies he wants.” 



The Folly of Anastasia 
Moylan 

BY MAUD REGAN 

Through all her days it had been the lot of 
Anastasia Moylan to tread, unregarded, the ob¬ 
scure byways of this world. Of those three stages 
in the common earthly pilgrimage, when even the 
lowliest of our race becomes for the moment a 
figure of interest and prominence, two had slipped 
irrevocably into the background of her existence 
without the slightest or most fleeting augmenta¬ 
tion of her consequence. 

Wailing her way into the world at the tail of a 
long and impecunious family of girls, her arrival 
had created not the tiniest flutter, unless indeed in 
the bosom of a sorely-harassed mother, who felt 
that by the introduction of this last small factor 
the problem of making strained ends meet had 
been complicated quite beyond hope of solution. 

Which was the initial mistake her world made 
in its appraisal of Anastasia. 

Even the choice of a name for the lusty, red¬ 
faced morsel had not been the subject of the family 


136 TEE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA MOYLAN 


conclaves ordinarily attendant upon so momentous 
a question. For, with the long line of her feminine 
predecessors, due honor had been paid to grand¬ 
mothers paternal and maternal, following which 
the Moylans, being simple folk who boasted no 
acquaintance among polysyllabically-named hero¬ 
ines of contemporary fiction, had turned for in¬ 
spiration to the Litany of the Saints. 

In fact, when Anastasia became old enough to 
evince an interest in the beginnings of her history, 
she learned with deep mortification that the neces¬ 
sity of providing her with a name had, amid the 
press of weightier matters, escaped the maternal 
memory, until, duly enveloped in the plaid shawl 
which did duty on these oft-recurring errands, she 
was on the point of being borne to St. Michael’s 
for baptism. N 

“And what were ye thinkin’ of callin’ the 
child?” casually inquired the father of the strug¬ 
gling atom with the remarkably wide open blue 
eyes. 

“Will ye look at that now!” exclaimed his wife, 
sinking aghast into the nearest chair. “Me wits 
must be gone entirely! Only for you remindin’ 
me, I’d have stud there dumb-founded when his 
riverence put me the same question, and been a 


MAUD REGAN 


137 


laughingstock for the rest of me days to the Mul- 
veys that have promised to stand for the 
crathure!” 

Seizing the well-thumbed prayer-book, which 
fell open of itself at the Litany of the Saints, her 
eyes followed the trail of a toil-worn forefinger 
down the broken lines of type, and anxious eyes 
and exploring digit finding the other feminine 
names already preempted by elder members of the 
Moylan clan, halted at “Anastasia,” which, being 
still free, was accepted without further parley. 
Anastasia subsequently came to regard this choice 
as an explanation of the fact that she had no 
successor to the honors of the christening shawl. 
With her name the possibilities of the Litany had 
been exhausted—beyond lay only fields of bright 
but vague conjecture opened out by the invocation, 
“All ye holy virgins and widows,” which was mani¬ 
festly impracticable for baptismal uses. 

Realizing possibly that her very existence de¬ 
manded some apology, the newly-made Christian 
left off crying at a surprisingly early stage of her 
career, and, sucking a reflective thumb, devoted 
the first year or so of existence to taking her bear¬ 
ings in a world which did not seem hospitably in¬ 
clined. On no other grounds can one explain the 


138 THE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA MOYLAN 

surprisingly few mistakes made by Anastasia at 
the tender age when she first set her small strength 
to the domestic wheel. 

Her usefulness dated almost from the moment 
of her discovery that the sturdy little legs she had 
been wont to regard with calm, impersonal interest 
actually provided adequate support for the roly- 
poly form encased in the “linsey-woolsey” frock 
which had descended through the long line of elder 
sisters. Vari-colored bars where tucks had been 
let out to accommodate the requirements of exist¬ 
ing tenants marked the different stages of its de¬ 
scent, and imparted to the form of the diminutive 
wearer a stratified and geological aspect flatly con¬ 
tradicted by the chubby modernity of her counte¬ 
nance. 

But if the garment was an inheritance, the bust¬ 
ling activity of its ultimate owner was a decided 
innovation, to be regarded with mistrustful ad¬ 
miration by elder sisters, who, after childhoods of 
comparative indolence, had drifted temporarily 
into factories or domestic service, pending yet 
further driftings into the delectable haven of mat¬ 
rimony. To these, the uncanny proficiency of 
Anastasia in the various branches of domestic sci¬ 
ence was a theme for fruitful discussion and aug- 


MAUD REGAN 


139 


meriting wonder. No New England housewife 
could have entertained a more hearty contempt for 
sloth and general shiftlessness than did this small 
scion of the happy-go-lucky Moylans. Though she 
stifled criticism, her immediate predecessors, 
Cecilia, Agatha, and Lucy, felt that their own 
haphazard domestic methods met with scant favor 
in Anastasia’s round blue eyes. 

By the close of her first decade she had emerged 
with flying colors from an apprenticeship in the 
elementary branches of dish-washing and vegetable 
paring. The ripe age of twelve found her an ac¬ 
complished laundress, to whose tub and iron fell 
the sheerest linens and filmiest laces, from those 
family washings whose proceeds interposed the 
main barrier between a never-distant wolf and the 
Moylan fold. At fourteen her experimental knowl¬ 
edge of higher cookery as set forth in the pages of 
a paper-covered volume advertising the superior 
merits of some special brand of baking-powder, was 
only limited by the prohibitive price of certain 
costly ingredients its recipes demanded in reckless 
profusion. 

Being of an inventive turn, she had been known 
to evolve from available supplies many satisfactory 
substitutes for the more costly ingredients, and on 


140 THE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA MOYLAN 

the festive occasion of Nora’s wedding had reduced 
the angel food recipe to its lowest terms in the 
matter of eggs, without any corresponding sacrifice 
of fluffiness. 

Thirsting at fifteen for fresh worlds to conquer, 
she went down into the marketplace and gave 
spirited battle to butchers and hucksters and green¬ 
grocers, returning victorious from successive en¬ 
counters with the spoils of war bursting richly 
from her basket, and no noticeable depletion of the 
family exchequer to tarnish her fame. Her views 
on the relative food values of the different cuts of 
meat came to be respectfully quoted, and her 
weekly return from market with a hamper out of 
all proportion to her size, and its contents ‘Teyond 
everything” for cheapness, was a spectacle which 
the neighborhood never found “age-withered or 
custom-staled.” 

In only one bargain was she temporarily worsted 
by means of a subterfuge, which, venerable in 
itself, was new in Anastasia’s experience. This 
was when an astute fruit-vender deluded her into 
the purchase of a basket of apples, the exceeding 
worthlessness of whose lower layers was veiled be¬ 
neath two tiers of rosy, glossy spheres bulking gen¬ 
erously above the basket’s rim. But her defeat was 


MAUD REGAN 


141 


only temporary, for the morrow beheld her return¬ 
ing to upbraid his perfidy. Backed by the con¬ 
sensus of public opinion, as represented by neigh¬ 
boring dealers, she actually extorted a rebate on 
the damaged goods, which she produced as cor¬ 
roborative evidence to the truth of her tale. At 
sixteen, having perfected herself in the various 
branches of domestic science, and finding that her 
mother’s failing strength prevented her talents 
from finding an outlet, as her sisters’ less dazzling 
attainments had done, in alien kitchens, her 
thoughts began to reach forward toward a future, 
when Prince Charming, disguised perhaps, as in 
their successive cases, in frieze and blue jean, 
would come to claim her. It is probable that in 
these long, long, youthful thoughts sentiment and 
romance played less part than did an ardent and 
long-starved desire on Anastasia’s part to cut some¬ 
thing of a figure in the world. 

“I suppose there was a great fuss when Mary 
was christened?” she had inquired, rather wist¬ 
fully, of her mother one spring twilight, as they 
sat idle in that blind-man’s holiday, when to both 
pairs of busy hands toil called a brief truce. 

“’Deed there was! You see, we gave her me 
mother’s name, and Mary Brady that stud for her 


142 THE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA MOYLAN 


made her a prisint of an iligent little silver ring,” 
replied Mrs. Moylan, nothing loath to embark upon 
the congenial topic of “better days.” 

“And I daresay it was the same with Nora?” 
interposed Anastasia, stemming the tide of remi¬ 
niscence. 

“More so, if anything. Times were good with 
us, thin, and as she was gettin’ your Grandmother 
Moylan’s name, your poor father was terribly set 
up over it. His sister came all the way from Mon¬ 
treal to be godmother, and after the christenin’ his 
riverence had a bit of supper with us. And Nora 
was out and out the purtiest little crathure I iver 
laid eyes on.” 

“I suppose there was nothing very pretty about 
me,” said Anastasia, wistfully. 

“Not to say exactly purty,” replied Mrs. Moylan, 
judicially, “but a tine, healthy lump of a child. I 
mind the first time Annie Mulvey laid eyes on ye. 
‘Blessin’s on the tine platther face of the child!’ 
were her very words, as she took ye in her arms 
at the church.” It can not be said that the repeti¬ 
tion of this benison roused its subject to any pitch 
of enthusiasm. Viewed as a spectacle, her chris¬ 
tening had evidently been a flat failure. 

Bereft even of the meager consolation which the 


MAUD REGAN 


143 


consciousness of a beauteous infancy would have 
afforded as offset against the trials of a present 
overshadowed by freckles, which, with cruel sis¬ 
terly hyperbole, Nora had once likened to “ginger- 
snaps,” Anastasia was conscious of a hot resent¬ 
ment against the fate which had denied her gray 
life its one small pageant. What a contrast to the 
lots of even the early wearers of the linsey frock! 
To be ignominiously bundled in a dingy shawl; 
to be thus equivocally blessed by one’s sponsor at 
the very outset of one’s career; to have the neces¬ 
sity of providing one with a name well-nigh over¬ 
looked, was evidently to be foredoomed to obscurity 
as the sparks fly upward. And now, Mary, Nora, 
Agatha, Lucy, and Cecilia had a second time 
achieved notoriety by stepping into the limelight 
glare which beats upon even the lowliest bride, and 
had successively departed from the maternal roof 
amid a reckless prodigality of rice and outworn 
footgear. 

The veil of white “illusion” whose misty folds 
had transfigured each in turn was thriftily 
shrouded in swathings of blue tissue paper against 
the day when Anastasia would, for the first time, 
burst upon her world as a person of consequence. 
Indulging in a dispassionate survey of the charms 


144 TEE FOLLY OF ANASTASL1 MOYLAN 

the veil was then to soften and enhance, Anastasia 
was encouraged to believe that she might after all 
turn out to be quite a creditable bride. 

Blue eyes, very clear and frank, looked out from 
a face whence the freckles had, by faithful ap¬ 
plication of buttermilk, been almost banished; the 
deviation of her mouth from strict classical stand¬ 
ards was almost redeemed by the smile which dis¬ 
closed two rows of gleaming, perfect teeth; and if 
her hair undeniably inclined toward the reddish 
tinge, whose esthetic value had not yet been recog¬ 
nized in Anastasia’s world, it was at least waving 
and abundant. But whether it was due to the lack 
of opportunities, provided in her sisters’ cases by 
contact with a larger outside world, or whether to 
an inherent, uncompromising angularity of mind 
and person, the day of Anastasia’s triumph seemed 
unduly deferred. One suitor, indeed, presented 
himself in the form of the jovial, and now rotund, 
market-man who had deluded her youthful in¬ 
experience with the fruit immemorially fatal to 
her sex. Her subsequent return and ultimate vic¬ 
tory had imbued him with deep and lasting ad¬ 
miration of her business talents, to which the offer 
of a life partnership seemed the only logical 
sequel. But even to one so matter-of-fact as Anas- 


MAUD REGAN 


145 


tasia his wooing seemed to lack the proper ring. 
For, though to be called “deep, knowing one” and 
“a shrewd hand at a bargain” may be gratifying 
to the intelligence, it can scarcely be termed satis¬ 
fying to the heart. Moreover, she was provided 
with standards of comparison in the fervent 
speeches Ned Dwyer had made to Mary, and the 
impassioned v T ows Tom Casey had poured into 
Nora’s willing ear. But even though to the anx¬ 
ious fruiterer had been given the tongues of men 
and angels, the sturdy honesty of Anastasia would 
have provided her with an armor against all his 
blandishments. Long since she had taken the 
measure of the man, and the estimate she had set 
against his name would never be obliterated. 

“Not all his piety or wit could lure her back to 
cancel half a line.” Not even the prospect of 
gratifying her long-withheld desire to cut a figure 
in the world could tempt her to a reconsideration 
of her decision. So she dismissed him with a cold 
finality, which left no room for doubt, and con¬ 
fidently awaited his successors, who, alas! were 
never to appear. For, unlike the linsey dress, the 
bridal veil did not inevitably descend in the 
Moylan line female. 

Despite such precautionary measures as copious 


146 THE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA HOYLAN 


swathings of blue tissue paper, the pristine white¬ 
ness of the illusion had been overlaid by a faint 
yellowish tinge by the time honest, hard-working 
Mrs. Moylan folded her toil-worn hands, and, well 
content, drifted peacefully out toward that bright 
Other-world where “Himself” was waiting. Her 
valedictory message to the fading world whose 
most rugged ways it had been hers to tread, was 
that “Anastasia had been the grand daughter en¬ 
tirely. Never a cross look from her all her days. 
Nothing but the kind word and the pleasant 
smile.” Which would seem to indicate that re¬ 
serves of tenderness lurked unsuspected in Anas¬ 
tasia’s spinster bosom, and that, contrary to ac¬ 
cepted custom, her “seamy side” was kept for the 
outside world. 

It was shortly after her mother’s death, when 
the twilights seemed long and empty, that there 
came to Anastasia a sudden realization of the fact 
that her youth was gone. Turning for corrobora¬ 
tive evidence to the family Bible, she came upon 
an entry which proved beyond dispute that Anas¬ 
tasia Moylan had entered upon the thirty-sixth 
year of her pilgrimage. 

After the momentary pause of adjustment neces¬ 
sitated by this discovery, Anastasia rose with a 

r 


MAUD REGAN 


147 


little sigh, and turned toward the cupboard where 
the bridal veil had been enshrined against the 
coming of a day which evidently for Anastasia was 
never to dawn. Having satisfied herself of its 
entirety, she folded it into a white box, which she 
laboriously addressed to Mary’s eldest girl, upon 
whom matrimonial honors were shortly to descend. 
Through sleepless nights the question of a suitable 
wedding-gift had haunted Anastasia, for, with her 
mother’s illness and her own consequent inaction, 
the family finances had been reduced to an ebb 
which made any additional outlay a matter for 
serious alarm. So Anastasia tried to persuade her¬ 
self that the vexed question had been most satis¬ 
factorily disposed of, though dimly conscious all 
the while that only the coercive eloquence of an 
empty purse could have persuaded her to sacrifice 
the misty bit of whiteness, with its clinging dreams 
and fancies, which represented the one bit of 
luxury and elegance which had ever transfigured, 
however briefly, the Moylan lot. 

She could see the little mother standing ex¬ 
citedly a-tiptoe as she disposed its filmy folds over 
the dusky braids of Mary and Nora, see her ar¬ 
ranging it as carefully, though with less eager¬ 
ness, for those subsequent bridals, which could 


148 TEE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA MOYLAN 

never be wholly gay for her because “Himself” was 
gone, and all manner of memories, sweet and sad, 
set lip and hands a-tremble. 

And Anastasia remembered how they had 
looked—those knotted, reddened hands toil had 
used so ill—against the incongruous background 
of illusion more vividly than she recalled the fresh 
young faces which had looked in turn from out its 
misty folds. 

As it passed from her keeping Anastasia re¬ 
signed herself to everlasting obscurity, and it must 
have been quite a month later, when, by way of re¬ 
laxation from a hard day’s w r ork, she pored over 
an ancient and borrowed newspaper, that a sudden 
flash of inspiration revealed the fact that her de¬ 
cision was not of necessity final. 

Births.—Marriages.—Deaths. The three col¬ 
umns which, with their long lists of unfamiliar 
names, had been swimming meaninglessly before 
her eyes, suddenly assumed a new significance. They 
represented the three possibilities of prominence 
in every life, and of these only two had passed her 
by. Two pageants fate had denied her, but the 
final one of all it was in her own power to achieve, 
and to surround with all manner of pomp and 
circumstance. Swiftly her mind embraced all the 


MAUD REGAN 


149 


gorgeous minutiae of funereal detail—the draped 
altar, the sobbing requiem, the stately march—and 
then, without, the press of carriages for all the 
friends and neighbors who would follow Anas¬ 
tasia's sable-plumed funeral car. Her thoughts 
even leaped forward to the possibility of a monu¬ 
ment where the obscure family name would flour¬ 
ish in braveries of carving and gilding, providing 
the hands of woman could in twenty-odd years 
compass so much work as would defray the cost of 
all this posthumous magnificence. 

She conservatively estimated the probable tale 
of her years at threescore—ten short of the allotted 
scriptural span. Having just turned thirty-six, 
her calculations allowed ample time for the realiza¬ 
tion of her final ambition. 

And so her whole broken life began to crystallize 
afresh about this central purpose. Though to the 
casual observer she might appear to move un¬ 
changed through the lowly parts for which she had 
been cast in life’s drama, over the gray routine of 
late hours, arduous toil, and Spartan fare lay the 
anticipated glory of a brilliant exit. In this great 
ambition to cut for once a figure in the world all 
lesser vanities w^ere relentlessly merged. 

Such concessions as she made to prevailing fash- 


150 THE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA MOYLAN 

ions were represented by the pressing and turning 
and sponging which annually overtook her decent 
black merino, and the occasional shifting of the 
red roses which bloomed perennial in her black 
bonnet, from front to back or side, according as the 
wind of fashion veered. 

She was anxiously debating whether her ad¬ 
vancing years did not imperatively demand the 
substitution of jet bugles for these weather-worn 
blossoms, when the question was temporarily set¬ 
tled by an attack of pneumonia which sent her, 
after repeated efforts to go as usual about her work, 
gasping and defeated to her bed. 

She was fifty-eight years old when this calamity 
befell, and the sun, for the first time in all his 
rounds, looked in upon a recumbent Anastasia. 
Though her savings aggregated something under 
two hundred dollars, she considered that in view 
of the divers items of rent, food, fuel, and small 
charities which had been covered by the daily 
dollar beyond which her wage had never mounted, 
she had reaped a rich harvest from the toilsome 
years. Moreover, the consideration that she was 
“without chick or child” had emboldened her mar¬ 
ried sisters, in moments of financial stringency, to 
make demands upon Anastasia’s purse, and though 


MAUD REGAN 


151 


the money usually went out in the guise of loans, 
circumstances generally conspired to transform it 
into gifts. For with the knowledge that poor 
Lucy’s cow (presumably with malice afore¬ 
thought) had “up and died on her/’ or that Mary’s 
husband had been “laid on his back and not able 
to turn his hand to a job this three months/’ it 
would have been a flinty-hearted Shylock who 
could have exacted his pound of flesh. Possibly 
it was her liberality in these small transactions 
which fostered among Anastasia’s kinsfolk the be¬ 
lief that in some unexplained fashion she had be¬ 
come a woman of substance. 

“There was no telling what money she had laid 
by—why, she hadn’t bought a new dress within the 
memory of man, for all she was better able to af¬ 
ford it than any of them !” And as an oft-told tale 
carries conviction at last, so did the rumors of 
Anastasia’s wealth establish themselves, and her 
testamentary intentions become an object of in¬ 
terest and solicitude. 

Meanwhile Anastasia, ignorant of these specula¬ 
tions, was anxiously casting up the cost of the ob¬ 
sequies toward which she was hastening. With the 
increased cost of living, it might have also grown 
more expensive to quit this life with becoming 


152 THE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA MOYLAN 


dignity. Still, careful but veiled inquiries had 
elicited the information that the sum of her 
savings would provide a funeral whose like had 
never been witnessed in the neighborhood. Her 
satisfaction in the prospect was dashed by the re¬ 
flection that her own part in this imposing spec¬ 
tacle would be a purely passive one, but her dis¬ 
satisfaction was of brief duration. Possibly from 
some celestial vantage-ground she might be vouch¬ 
safed a glimpse of the cortege, as an initial recom¬ 
pense for a life which had been singularly void of 
earthly gratifications. She might be emboldened 
to confide her longings on this score to some dear, 
human saint of all that radiant throng, “All ye 
holy virgins and widows.” 

They had once seemed so splendid and remote, 
it was only lately Anastasia had come to think of 
them as sympathizing and accessible, their glowing 
ranks recruited in part , from just such plain, 
kindly souls as was she who whispered, perhaps, in 
heaven, that “Anastasia had been a good daughter 
to her,” and craved a blessing on her pain-racked 
form. 

It was Nora who came to nurse her, Nora who 
had always been her favorite, Nora whose once 
pretty face spoke sadly of the ravages of the ruth- 


MAUD REGAN 


153 


less years. With an iron determination, Anastasia 
had kept a firm rein upon her wandering thoughts, 
so that her final instructions might be terse and 
lucid. Had the pain left room for other sensation, 
it would have been keen delight to Anastasia to 
behold Nora’s appreciation of the quantity and 
texture of the linen piled up, lavender-scented, 
against just such occasion; to note her apprecia¬ 
tion, which grief could not wholly quench, of the 
quality of the brown habit in which her sister was 
to lie in state, for the first time in her eight-and- 
fifty years, the observed of all observers. In 
mounting amaze, Nora heard the unfolding of 
Anastasia’s plans, promising tearfully to execute 
her final behests, and to wring from the two hun¬ 
dred dollars the last iota of funereal splendor. 

So, having settled her worldly concerns in the 
event of the worst befalling, Anastasia faced the 
king of terrors as though he had been one of her 
ancient enemies in the marketplace, and gave him 
the spirited battle to be expected of a woman of 
her mettle. The issue of the conflict remained 
doubtful until the ninth day, when Anastasia 
groped her way back from the arena, victorious, 
but sadly shaken, and opened puzzled eves upon 
scenes of which she had fancied herself forever 


154 THE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA MOYLAN 


quit. Roving over the familiar surroundings, her 
eyes fell at last upon Nora, kneeling upon the 
floor, her head buried in the counterpane, and her 
whole attitude breathing weariness and dejection. 

A great wave of pity and gratitude seemed to 
sweep over Anastasia as she gazed upon the hud¬ 
dled form. 

“Don’t cry, Nora,” she managed to say weakly. 
“I’m not going to die, after all.” 

Nora lifted startled eyes, and shook her head 
despondently. 

“ ’Tain’t that,” she exclaimed in a burst of can¬ 
dor and woe, “I felt all along you’d pull through. 
The doctor said you had superb vitality, whatever 
that may mean. And it’s a sight for sore eyes to 
see you yourself again,” she continued, sensible 
through her own absorbing sorrow that her wel¬ 
come of one who had gone down into the valley of 
the shadow was somewhat lacking in enthusiasm. 
“But I’m in such a state over poor Letty I can’t 
seem to think of anything else. She’s sick in 
Saskatoon, and her husband’s out of work, through 
no fault of his own, but ’tis a slack season and the 
factory has shut down. I had a letter this morn¬ 
ing asking if I could spare a trifle that would tide 
them over the bad spell, and the mite I can scrape 


MAUD REGAN 


155 


together seems scarcely worth sending. ’Twas 
never Letty’s way to ask for anything as long as 
she had hands to work, but somehow her man never 
seems to get on in the world, for all he’s so indus¬ 
trious and steady. And now poor Letty’s sick, 
with strangers all about her, and I’m no more able 
to go to her than if she lived in the moon.” 

Abandoning herself to these mournful reflec¬ 
tions, Nora bowed her head in an attitude of utter 
dejection. Decidedly the world to which Anastasia 
had struggled back so painfully was showing her, 
just as of old, its grimmest face. Lying there with 
closed eyes and hands feebly clenched, she was con¬ 
scious of a hot resentment against the fate which 
now, at her weakest, confronted her with the su¬ 
preme struggle of her life’s campaign. How much 
simpler it would have been to have slipped quietly 
away a day or so ago, was a thought recurring 
again and again, as she lay in a stillness broken 
only by the sounds of Nora’s noisy woe. Finally, 
with a little sigh, she slipped out a wasted hand 
and laid it gently on Nora’s bowed head. 

“Hush, woman,” she said softly. “You’ve pulled 
me back to life, right or wrong. I don’t know how 
it will turn out,” she continued, with a curious, 
twisted smile, “but at any rate it was kindly meant. 


150 THE FOLLY OF ANASTASIA MOYLAN 


and one good turn deserves another. So you must 
just take the money I told you of, and go off and 
see what’s to be done for Letty. My old bones will 
get buried somehow, when their time comes. It’s 
too concerned I was over them entirely!” 

Nora’s half-hearted protestations, soon over¬ 
borne, gave place to a gratitude as vehement and 
voluble as had been her sorrow. It reached at last 
its triumphant peroration in the incontrovertible 
statement: 

“But what’s the use of my talking to you, Anas¬ 
tasia, about things you can’t understand, never 
having known a mother’s feelings!” 

Anastasia lay silent, while a smile, half-grim, 
half-humorous, dawned in her pale, pinched face. 

m 

It had possibly occurred to her that since so many 
maternal sacrifices had been her portion, it would 
have been some compensation to have experienced 
those maternal raptures from which she was alone 
debarred. 

Her convalescence was, of necessity, rapid, for 
the ranks of toilers are swift to close upon an 
empty place. Two weeks from the day of her final 
farewell to pomps and vanities she might have been 
seen treading her brisk way through the crowded 
streets, her errand being to apprise former patrons 


MAUD REGAN 


157 


of her ability and readiness to resume her former 
tasks. 

Letters from the little threatened home in Sas¬ 
katoon had told her how imminent had been the 
calamity which her timely benefaction had averted, 
and with their fervor of gratitude thrilled her 
heart with pleasant warmth. 

As she stepped briskly out, eyes alight, gray hair 
banded smoothly back beneath the dim roses of her 
antiquated bonnet, not one of those to whom she 
flung, in passing, a cheery greeting would have 
guessed that she was beginning the world afresh 
at fifty-eight, with every prospect of being buried 
by the parish. 








Not a New Woman 


BY MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 

Crawfordsville people were never bored, for 
they were always intensely interested in one an¬ 
other's affairs. So when Irene Randall came home 
from college with a degree and a bicycle, wearing 
a short skirt, under which lurked unprecedented 
horrors in the shape of boots and bloomers, all 
feminine Crawfordsville was enchanted with the 
new excitement. 

The men did not care particularly, for Irene 
had never been a good dancer, and she had no 
fund of good-humored small talk with which to 
make comfortable the genus masculine—which, 
the world over, is what he likes. They didn’t care 
in the least that she knew Greek and Hebrew, but 
thought it a pity that she should spoil a pair of 
fine eyes with spectacles, having injured her eyes 
with a too close application to Hebrew points. 
The girls, however, were awed, and Irene’s young 
cousin, Nell Carter, just “out,” and enraptured 
with the delights of the “Dolly Varden Club” 


160 


NOT A NEW WOMAN 


dances and “assemblies,” felt herself a frivolous 
cumberer of the ground. 

In reality she was not, for little convent-bred 
Nelly was a good daughter and sister, and ready 
to be a good wife to the man fortunate enough to 
win her. There were many who wanted her, for 
hers was just such a sweet, womanly presence as 
would make a home beautiful for some true heart. 
It was not so much her beauty which attracted 

a 

people to Nell Carter, though she had the trimmest 
of little figures, the most kissable of mouths, the 
truest brown eyes, and such clouds of soft brown 
hair that it almost overshadowed her white brow; 
it was the gentle spirit animating her slight frame 
which made people love her. 

“Isn’t Miss Nell charming?” asked the men, 
and, strange to relate, the women answered en¬ 
thusiastically : 

“Yes, indeed; Nell’s a girl who never says a 
mean thing about any one; and she’s so sincere, 
too.” 

But Nell wasn’t satisfied with herself—she 
wanted to be like Irene. 

She couldn’t ride a wheel, she was too timid for 
that, and she never could learn those “x = the 
sum of ale — y z;” it gave her spasms to see 


MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 


161 


the physiological charts which Irene spent hours 
in drawing, and her ideas on “The Predisposing 
and Causative Factors in the Development of the 
Prevailing Erroneous Ideas upon the Status of 
the Female Sex” (the subject of Irene’s gradu¬ 
ating essay) were few and far between. 

jSTell had been brought up by a refined, old- 
fashioned mother to suppose that, unless she had a 
“vocation,” when she was old enough she would 
marry, if she was good. She knew some girls 
didn’t, and it was too bad, for they must be so 
lonesome; but she supposed clever people didn’t 
mind not being married. 

Irene fired Nell’s imagination with her splendid 
tales of what the “new, untrammeled woman” 
could accomplish. “There is Clara Barton,” her 
cousin had said. “Think of her in the Hospital of 
Alphonso XII. attending amputations” (Nell 
shuddered) ; “nursing yellow fever and gangrene 
and all those splendid and interesting things. 
Think of her among the Turks, with blood flow¬ 
ing in rivers” (Nell knew she was going to faint), 
“and the mangled corpses of Armenians at her 
feet! Think of the women who have stood for 
suffrage, and vote shoulder to shoulder with men 
at the polls!” Nell remembered the drunken 


162 


NOT A NEW WOMAN 


whites and burly negroes who went past her house 
when she sat cowering behind the lace curtains be¬ 
cause her mother thought it wasn’t nice for a girl 
to be on the street on Election Day, and she 
couldn’t but feel glad that she wasn’t a voter. 

“Remember what women can do and be brave 
enough to give the weight of your example to the 
cause,” her cousin continued, and her fine eyes 
glowed behind the spectacles. 

“I don’t think there is any weight to my ex¬ 
ample, but I certainly would like to do something,” 
said Nell, in the pretty Southern drawl which was 
one of her greatest charms. 

“'Oh, you’re the kind that always takes with 
men,” said Irene, a little scornfully. “You’d bet¬ 
ter try to influence them. Will you go to the 
Mission for Non-Catholics with me to-night? I 
have heard it is given by a Reverend Father who 
is quite advanced in his ideas.” 

“Yes, I’ll go,” said Nell. She couldn’t go to 
nurse Cubans, nor be wise and learned, but she 
could go to church; and the two girls separated, 
Nelly quite elated at the prospect of becoming a 
“new woman” so easily. Her pleasure was some¬ 
what dampened when she received a note from 
Tom Butler asking her to go to a dance with him 


MARY F . NIXON-ROULET 


163 


that very evening, and she wept two big round 
tears that she had to refuse. She did love to dance 
with Mr. Butler, for he was the best dancer in 
Crawfordsville. He had such nice manners, too, 
and such an easy way of making you feel com¬ 
fortable. Moreover, as was evident to all Craw¬ 
fordsville, he was desperately in love with Nell 
Carter, and if she had allowed herself to think of 
it she would have discovered in her heart a de¬ 
cided tenderness for the manly fellow whose clear 
gray eyes looked one so frankly in the face, and 
who was an honorable gentleman with a good busi¬ 
ness head, a kind heart, and plenty of faults which 
never degenerated into vices. 

However, little Nell, despite her sweetness, had 
plenty of strength of will, and she adhered woman- 
fully to her promise to go with Irene. The Mis¬ 
sion was crowded. Nell listened intently, and as 
the priest began to speak she was interested. He 
was a plain man, as plain as some fishermen of 
Galilee 'who strangely stirred the world some hun¬ 
dreds of years before, and he possessed such elo¬ 
quence as theirs, springing from the same source— 
exalted faith. He spoke of the unhappiness 
around them, of misery, vice, and poverty, of sin, 
and of the only cure for weary souls, and little 


164 


NOT A NEW WOMAN 


Nell felt her heart stir within her at his glowing 
words. Oh, if she could only do something for 
those poor people! There were so many of them 
in Crawfordsviile, but what could she do? Then 
the speaker’s voice rang out: 

“Go out into the highways and hedges, and com¬ 
pel them to come in ! Bring them here—here they 
will find rest. Ask them yourselves. You ladies, 
your invitation would bring some man, and I say 
it is your duty to compel them to come.” 

Nell lost the rest, for she felt that her hour was 
nigh. She was the shyest of mortals, and the idea 
of compelling any one to do anything sent little 
thrills of fear all over her. But her conscience 
was aroused and she went home determined to 
send some one to that Mission. 

She thought about it all night and all the next 
morning, and soon after luncheon she started out 
to consult Irene. She knew her cousin would be 
pleased, for was not this her first step toward be¬ 
coming a “new woman” ? Irene was not at home, 
and Nell wandered disconsolately away to walk off 
her disappointment. Glancing down an unfre¬ 
quented street, she saw half a dozen men approach¬ 
ing, and her heart flew' into her throat. Here was 
an opportunity! Ought she to invite those men 


MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 


165 


to the Mission? Could she ever do such a thing? 
He had said the highways and hedges, and this 
was certainly one or the other, or both. She 
recognized the leader of the band; at least, his face 
was familiar. She thought he must have worked 
upon their place or something, and he was de¬ 
cently dressed and looked all right. As the men 
approached she nerved herself for the dreadful 
deed and stopped them. 

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice trembling— 
yet she went bravely on, “I want to ask if you will 
do something for me ?” 

“Why, yes, Miss Carter,” said the leader, look¬ 
ing very much surprised. “Certainly I will, if I 
can.” 

“Oh, you can if you will.” Her eager face 
brightened and the rough fellows looked ad¬ 
miringly at her pretty, flushed cheeks. “But it’s 
all of you, I mean. Will you all go to the Mission 
to-night at St. Agnes’ Church?” 

There was a subdued stir, a rustle of surprise 
from man to man, a stifled laugh from one, but 
the leader silenced him with a look. 

“Thank you, Miss Carter,” he said. “It’s very 
good of you to ask us, and we’d all like to go, 
wouldn’t we, boys ?” 


166 


NOT A NEW WOMAN 


To a man the boys responded that they would, 
and Nell’s face brightened. 

“Oh, will you go ?” she cried. “Promise me!” 
and she looked pleadingly into the hard faces, 
some of which softened perceptibly at the gaze of 
those innocent, girlish eyes. 

“Thank you, Miss Carter,” said the leader. “We 
would all like to go, but we have some pressing 
business on hand to-night. We’ll go as soon as we 
can. Won’t we, boys?” 

“You bet!” chorused the gang, and beaming in 
friendly fashion, Nell cried, “Thank you ever and 
ever so much!” as they passed on and she went 
down the street. 

She breathed a sigh of relief. Being a new 
woman wasn’t half as bad as she had thought, 
and—but her reverie was interrupted by a rather 
stern voice, which said: “Miss Nell, what on earth 
were you talking to that outfit for?” and Mr. 

4 * 

/ 

Butler stood before her. She started and flushed 
guiltily as she met his gaze. 

“Were they annoying you?” he asked. 

“Oh, no! I’m afraid I was annoying them, just 
at first,” she answered. “But they were very 
polite.” 

“Do you know who they are?” he demanded, 


MARY F. mXON-ROULET 


167 


amazement depicted on every line of his pleasant 
face. 

"Well, I don’t know exactly—but the first one, 
I think, has made our flower-beds or cut the grass, 
or something. His face is familiar. He was very 
nice to me-” 

a Oh, he was, was he? Well, he’d better be,” 
growled Tom Butler. "May I inquire what you 
were annoying him about?” 

"I’d rather not tell,” hesitated Nell, too truthful 
to tell a lie, but strangely shy about confiding her 
"new woman” ideas to Tom. That young man’s 
face clouded. 

"I beg pardon,” he said stiffly. "I didn’t mean 
to interfere, but if I were you I wouldn’t talk to 
him again. You see, he happens to be the sheriff, 
and that was a gang of outlaws that he is taking 
to a safe place.” 

"Prisoners!” she gasped, turning white as a 
little ghost. 

"Yes; they have been up to worse devilment 
than usual down in Taney, and there was some 
talk of a lynching, so the sheriff is smuggling them 
out of town. Why, what’s the matter? You’re 
not angry with me for telling you, are you ?” 

She had turned away a white and troubled face. 



168 


NOT A NEW WOMAN 


and she said: "Th—ank you, Pm not angry, but I 
th—ink I must go home, Mr. Butler.” 

"May I come up to-night?” he asked, and the 
color flew into the rounded cheek as she an¬ 
swered : 

"Well, I—I was going to be at home.” 

A few moments later she was pouring the whole 
terrible tale into her mother’s ears, for Nell and 
her mother were good friends, and the childish 
habit of confidence in what "mother said” had 
never been broken. 

"Oh, mother, I wanted to be of some use—like 
Irene—and I’m afraid I’ll never make a ‘new 
woman.’ I was so scared when I tried to talk to 
those strange men, and to have them turn out to 
be so dreadful. It was awful! And will I have 
to tell Mr. Butler? What will he think of me?” 
and the tears overflowed the pretty eyes and the 
lips quivered tremulously. 

"My dear child, tell him, of course. He will 
think nothing unkind. You made a mistake; 
that’s all. There is always a diversity of gifts,” 
said her mother. "Everybody is not like Irene 
[thank God. sotto voce], and your duty is to fol¬ 
low out your own nature so that you make the best 
of what is in you. You are a home body, and be- 


MARY F. NIXON-ROULET 


169 


cause others are not does not make it necessary 
for you to try to fit a round peg in a square hole. 
Be yourself, dearie, and your influence will be felt, 
and don’t let me hear any more about being a new 
woman,” and, kissed and comforted, Nell awaited 
the evening in trepidation. 

The candles burned low in the pretty parlor, 
and Nell, clad in the daintiest of pale-hued or¬ 
gandies, in which she looked very like her own 
grandmother, so quaint and old-fashioned was she, 
sat chatting with Mr. Butler, wdiose eyes devoured 
her beauty. Then gently and with much hesita¬ 
tion, she told him the wdiole story of her attempts, 
and he arose and caught her to him, eagerly, yet 
with a tender reverence. 

"You darling! You plucky little girl!” he 
cried. "To think you had the courage to attack 
that crowd! You’re the stuff martyrs are made 
of, but we won’t have you martyrized any more. 
Irene can be all the new woman she wants to, but 
you’ll come and grow old with me, won’t you, 
dearest?” and a half stifled, wholly happy little 
voice from Tom’s breast answered, "Oh, Tom!” 




An Idealist 


BY MARION AMES TAGGART 

It is hard to explain why one who plays a Ante 
should be, if he wmula fit his role, a gentle and 
dreamy mortal. “Flutist” and “sentimentalist” 
are correlative terms, apparently, though at first 
glance one would rather expect the wielder of the 
graceful violin bow to he more sentimental than 
he who vigorously blows forth his soul, even though 
it is into the mouth of the “spring-hued flute.” 
However, Apollo has decreed that he who serves 
him by making music on the flute should be a 
dreamer, a recluse soul, a sentimentalist, and the 
decree stands. 

Emil Siegeslied was true to his calling. He had 
fluted before he was booted; the flute was his nat¬ 
ural channel of self-expression—more so, indeed, 
than his tongue, for Emil was a silent man. He 
was as fitly a flute player, according to the re¬ 
ceived conception of that musician, as a mortal 
could be. In his fashioning his body and mind 


172 


AN IDEALIST 


were made for a flute player as perfectly as the 
flute itself, with its stops and reed-like body, was 
fashioned to its end. Emil was "American born/’ 
that proud boast of the good citizen, but he was 
German in blood, in thought, in temperament, in 
talent, and, above all, in sentiment. He was fair¬ 
haired, blue-eved, with the soft voice claimed as a 
birthright by his mother’s Hanoverian people, but 
he shared the ardor, the artistic and poetic ideals 
of his father’s South German race. 

In the days when "The Little Tycoon” was pop¬ 
ular—days which one hesitates to admit remem¬ 
bering—everybody with an ear for a tune, and 
many without, went about whistling and singing 
"Love Comes Like a Summer Sigh.” And a little 
further on, each deponent said—are you one of 
those who remember the pretty waltz song and its 
alarming statement of your fate ?—each singer de¬ 
clared, "Love some day must come to all.” Per¬ 
haps that is true, and perhaps it is not, at least in 
the exclusive sense of the word "love” which the 
song intended. Heaven forbid that love of one 
sort or another should miss any of God’s creatures! 
But whether it is or is not true that no one can 
escape a grand passion, it was a foregone conclu¬ 
sion that Emil would be the victim of one. No 


MARION AMES T AGO ART 


173 


one could play the flute as Emil could and not at¬ 
tract the attention of the little blind god. 

Emil fell in love early, violently, and hopelessly. 
When one considers, that is the best way for a 
musician to fall in love, as it is the most poetic way. 
Emil breathed into his sympathetic flute the story 
too sacred for any other friend, but it can not be 
said that the flute kept the secret. So beautiful 
were its utterances that to any one with perception 
it said: “Listen! I am voicing a hopeless and un¬ 
dying love ! The breath that is my soul is the sigh 
of a broken-hearted lover; no other could infuse 
into me the soul you hear.” 

Had Emil been capable of consolation he could 
have been consoled. All the fair, and some of the 
unfair, maidens of his neighborhood were ready, 
to a greater or lesser degree, to comfort him. Emil 
would not be comforted—there was too much com¬ 
fort in the knowledge of his tragic fate. It was 
beautiful to see one so constant, especially to a 
lady whom he had scarcely known—the neighbor¬ 
hood knew all the scant details of Emil’s romance. 

Minna Franz had grown up to the sound of 
Emil’s flute and to the knowledge of his beautiful 
sorrow. She was half his age when they met—- 
this was before the sorrow—but she rapidly al- 


174 


AN IDEALIST 


tered that, becoming but eight years his junior, 
and lessening the force of those eight years 
steadily. When Emil was twenty-eight Minna was 
twenty, a round, rosy-cheeked, ; pretty creature, 
who was already, in spite of her plump baby face, 
in some respects the elder of Emil, the dreamer. 

Since her eighth year Emil had spent most of 
his evenings in the cozy sitting-room back of Papa 
Franz’s tailoring-shop. Minna counted less than 
the insistent cat at first. Gradually she grew 
taller, steadfast all the time to proportion in width. 
The first time that Emil saw her, in any real sense 
of seeing, she was sixteen, and Emil was freshly 
heartbroken. She w r as pressing garments, with a 
goose—not Emil—and her face was so warm and 
red as she laid her cheek persuasively down on the 
goose’s handle that Emil mournfully thought: 
“How sweet and pretty she is!” and taking up his 
flute absent-mindedly, played “Madele, ruk, ruk, 
ruk,” in a way that called forth enthusiastic ap¬ 
plause from Papa Franz and his assistant, and 
made Minna burn herself on the goose as she heed¬ 
lessly clapped her hands, holding it. 

Emil pla} r ed in the theater. After a time— 
when Minna was eighteen—he began to take her 
once in a while to see the play, bestowing her safely 


MARION AMES TAGGART 


175 


in the gallery while he repaired to the orchestra, 
and meeting her at the door as soon as he could 
stampede out after the last high note of the un¬ 
heeded finale. 

As time went on Minna became less and less a 
luxury and more and more a necessity to the 
heartbroken Emil. He took her regularly on every 
pleasant Sunday to the park, and on stormy Sun¬ 
days he played to her in the family sitting-room. 
To her alone, for the wise Papa and Mama Franz 
kept themselves out of the way until supper-time. 
Seeing that Minna’s love was not in the least of the 
burned-out, ashes-of-roses variety, but a living, ab¬ 
sorbing passion, they eagerly furthered their child’s 
happiness by every simple means known to them. 

“It’s no use, multerleint’ Minna said tearfully, 
seeing no reason for concealing her feelings. 
“Emil loves that lady which he don’t know but so 
very little, and he will never, never love me who 
loves him.” 

This was so dreadful an outlook that the Frau 
Franz took the matter to the parish priest, who 
heartily wished to administer to Minna another 
sacrament—he had baptized her and had heard her 
first confession. He listened to the mother’s story 
with laughing eyes. 


176 


AN IDEALIST 


“Send Minna to me,” he said. “To think that 
I should have to teach a young girl the wisdom 
that her Mother Eve learned from the serpent and 
faithfully transmitted to all her daughters, as I 
thought until now !” 

Minna came, so pretty and altogether desirable 
that the kind old priest inwardly pronounced Emil 
the stupidest of mortals. 

“I always found that it befuddled my brains to 
blow at anything very long and very hard,” he 
said. “Emil must be like me; he has blown all 
his senses out tootling at his flute.” 

“Oh, Father!” protested Minna, shocked. “Emil 
doesn’t tootle; he is a grand performer!” 

“Yes, he plays well, but he plays with his eyes 
shut,” retorted the priest. “Minna, why don’t you 
talk to him about love? Discussion of that subject 
is excellent.” 

“Father, Emil has always talked to me of love— 
of his love for that lady,” returned Minna. “It 
doesn’t seem as if anybody could love so a person 
which he has seen but little. But he tells me she 
is to him a star, and since he saw her he is forever 
a follower after love! Now, Father, he has love. 
All the children in the street know him and run 
after him, everybody loves him, and all the dogs 


M Alt I ON AMES TAGGART 


177 


and cats wag their tails and mew to him. And at 
the theater they say such things of him—you 
wouldn’t believe! And they give him solos ! And, 
Father, they have asked him up to the opera house 
to play the flute for the accompaniment of the 
great crazy act in ‘Lucia di Lammermoor.’ He has 
love enough. But he says, no; I don’t understand. 
He is a follower after something ideal, a follower 
after the dream of love. Father! Do you think 
that is so beautiful? Will Emil spend all his life 
following after what is a nothing?” 

Minna exploded her last words in her earnest¬ 
ness, and the priest laughed till the tears came. 
“The ideal of love is a home and pretty, healthy 
children. I agree with you that this is ‘a noth¬ 
ing !’ ” he said. “Minna, Emil is too comfort¬ 
able ; you must go away.” 

Minna gasped. 

“Where, Father? Why, Father?” she managed 
to say. 

“Anywhere, so that you are gone for a month; 
to your aunt’s in Cincinnati,” he replied. 

Again Minna gasped. 

“And lose my Sundays?” she murmured. 

“In order to turn all your days into Sundays, 
yes,” said the old priest. “Minna, my child, Emil 


178 


AN IDEALIST 


loves you, but he has not sense enough to know it. 
He has blown all of his senses into that flute of 
his. He is too comfortable. He must miss you, 
and then we shall see what we shall see! But it 
stands to reason that it is you that he loves, and 
not a person whom he has seen hardly often 
enough—so long ago, besides—to be sure of the 
color of her eyes.” 

“I have often thought that. Father,” said Minna 
demurely, thus betraying the reason for her con¬ 
tinued plumpness and rosiness through her trying 
role of confidante to Emil’s super-earthly love. 

Minna was docile and confiding; she had never 
in her life disobeyed her parents, nor her priest. 
Accordingly, with many tears and without a word 
to Emil, she made herself ready, and when the 
idealist came, as usual, to the tailor-shop, pretty 
Minna had vanished. With her, it seemed to him, 
had gone all the furnishing, all the light of the 
place. For the first time he saw how dim the lamp 
burned in the middle of the table, how unorna¬ 
mental were the china vases, the clock on the 
mantelpiece, and the china figures flanking it on 
the dresser, as well as the ribbon bows on the 
chairs. 

“Where is Minna, you ask?” said Papa Franz, 


MARION AMES TAGGART 


179 


looking up from his account book. “Ach, she iss 
off for a long wisit. We must make ourselves used 
to doing mitoudt our Minna. She iss yung. We 
leave her go mit her aunt vere she see blenty. I 
guess Minna will be marrying herself some day, 
Emil, but don't you say noddings roundt oudt- 
side.” 

Emil felt his world crumbling about him. He 
sat dazed amid its ruins. Mama Franz, stealing a 
look at him as he conveyed his flute to his lips and 
began to play Schubert’s Standchen , nodded un¬ 
observed to Papa Franz, with difficulty controlling 
her desire to give the idealist a maternal embrace. 

A month passed, a month of salutary lessons to 
this dreamer. To save his life, Emil could not fix 
his thoughts on the beacon star that had—or which 
he thought had—guided his life since his twenty- 
third year. He had nursed his broken heart— 
could it be that it had been whole all the while? 
Was his vision but a sentiment—worse, a senti¬ 
mentality? How could he hunger for Minna as 
he was hungering for her, if he had been filled by 
the memory of that beautiful, high-born young 
lady whom he had met seven times at his old 
music-master’s, and with whom his acquaintance 
was limited to one duet, which he had rapturously 



180 


AN IDEALIST 


played, with her accompanying his flute on the 
piano ? More than all this: if, as he was absolutely 
sure it would be, his heart would break in very 
truth if pretty Minna went out of his life, his dear 
little, faithful Minna, whose growth he had 
watched with unconscious delight all these years, 
then how could his heart have been broken before ? 

Emil meditated long on these problems, and 
arrived at a satisfactory conclusion, satisfactory to 
himself and to Papa Franz, to whom he announced 
it when he went to ask to be allowed to meet 
Minna at the station on her return. He met her, 
a pale little Minna, distinctly less plump. Her 
medicine for Emil had proved a bitter draught to 
herself. Away from him it had seemed impossible 
that it would all turn out as well as the good 
priest had promised her that it should, and Minna 
had almost succeeded in becoming slender in a 
month of worrying and pining. 

But when her eyes met Emil’s the color flooded 
her face; she knew the instant that he looked at 
her that it was all right. Never on the pleasant 
Sundays in the park, nor on the stormy ones in the 
little back sitting-room, had Emil’s eyes looked at 
her like that. Nor were they the eyes of one who 
still sought the ideal of love ! 


MARION AMES TAGGART 


181 


“Minna, it was all a mistake!” he cried the in¬ 
stant he had got her where he could speak. “That 
beautiful young lady was no more to me than a— 
a dressmaker’s dummy.” 

“Oh, Emil!” protested Minna feebly. 

“Just a dummy,” asseverated Emil. “The fig¬ 
ure on which I hung my love for you. I was right 
in thinking that I was in love, but it was not with 
her, it was with you, liebchen!” 

“She was so tall, you said,” murmured Minna, 
fluttering, overwhelmed with joy. 

“She was beautiful, but I like little girls,” main¬ 
tained Emil stoutly. “I love one little girl! No 
one can ever understand how I could have dreamed 
as I did; if I hadn’t seen you almost every day, I 
should have waked up sooner.” 

“You think you are awake, not dreaming now, 
Emil?” suggested Minna, mischievously. 

“You understood all the time, didn’t you, 
Minna?” cried Emil, wondering. 

“Not all the time, but—sometimes,” whispered 
Minna. 

And that night, in the little back parlor, where 
the Franzes had invited the old priest to help cele¬ 
brate the betrothal, no one ever heard such playing, 
such songs without words, songs that needed no 


182 


AN IDEALIST 


words, as were breathed into his flute by Emil, the 
follower of love, the idealist, with his waking eyes 
fixed adoringly on the round and rosy face of 
Minna, his ideal so prettily embodied. 


Tio Antonio’s Old Sofa 

BY MARY E. MANNIX 

“It is at last a good luck for us,” said the 
Senora Patiilo, folding her fat hands in her lap, 
and leaning hack in her rocking-chair. "It is at 
last that we come again to what belongs to us. 
And now to turn the old stuff out into the streets 
for the junkman. We will furnish throughout, 
Ysadora.” 

The Patillos had once been extensive land- 
owners, but had suffered the usual fate of the old 
Spanish settlers. For three generations they had 
been poor, but now oil had been discovered on the 
small patch of ground remaining to them, and, as 
the Senora told her less fortunate neighbors, was 
yielding them an income of a thousand dollars a 
month. 

“Ysadora,” she continued to her dead husband’s 
niece, to whom she had given a home but no affec¬ 
tion, "Ysadora, to-morrow I will go to town and 
order. There will be everything fine. Crimson 
rugs and curtains—how I love crimson!—and 


184 


T10 ANTONIO’S OLD SOFA 


everything to correspond. And brass bedsteads 
just like gold, my child.” 

Her eyes began to rove around the room. 

“And that old sofa,” she cried, “that goes the 
very first! Without springs this twenty years, so 
that when one sits down upon it one is on the 
floor! Yes, that goes the very first.” 

Came a voice from the sofa, which stood in a 
dark corner: 

“But, no, sister-in-law. That sofa does not go. 
My father left it to me, and I do not part with it.” 

“But I say that it does,” answered the Senora, 
angrily, beginning to rock furiously. Wisely, 
Uncle Antonio did not reply. And Ysadora, pru¬ 
dent also, went out into the garden. A week later 
Father Martelles, the new pastor, stood at the gate 
talking to the Senora. 

“And what is this about Tio Antonio?” he in¬ 
quired. “Can not something be done ?” 

“Not a finger shall I lift to do anything,” an¬ 
swered the Senora, vehemently. “Not an eyelash. 
You know not the story, Father. It is this. When 
my husband’s father, old Don Rafael Patillo, died, 
he left all to him—to my husband. It was well 
known that Antonio had never been able to take 
care of himself, and therefore would not know how 


MARY E. MANNIX 


185 


to care for property. Always a dreamer, from his 
youth, cutting out crosses from wood, and carving 
them, and ornamenting altars, and painting pic¬ 
tures, and covering furniture, and even making 
it, and helping with houses—fancy, Father, a 
Fatillo being a carpenter!” 

“Christ was a carpenter,” rejoined the Padre. 

“Yes, but that was to set us a lesson of hu¬ 
mility. It was not to make all the world the 
same.” 

“Few of us have profited by that lesson, I fear, 
Senora,” said the priest. 

“That may be,” rejoined the Senora, indiffer¬ 
ently. “So all was left to my husband.” 

“And he did well with it?” 

“How could he ? The war came, and the Ameri¬ 
cans, and you know how things were. And Marco 
had never worked—he did not know how. Would 
to heaven that he had lived to this day, when all is 
well with us again. My boy Jose is coming home, 
and my married daughter from Chihuahua, and 
there will be plenty for all. It will be like old 
times once more.” 

“And how about Antonio, and the young girl, 
Ysadora ?” 

“We gave him a home, and her. She is the 


186 


TIO ANTONIO’S OLD SOFA 


daughter of my husband's sister, who made a bad 
marriage." 

"A good and lovable child, I have heard," said 
the priest. 

“Oh, she has been very well," replied the Senora. 
“But now an ingrate. She goes with Antonio." 

“'They are leaving you, then ?" 

“Yes, and it is as well. You see, the house will 
be full with my own children and their little ones. 
It was an old sofa, Father. A disgraceful old 
sofa, belonging to Antonio. I wanted to sell it, 
or to burn it, but he would not allow it, he said. 
So I gave him the choice between that and the 
street—and he takes the street. And then Ysadora 
fires up, and goes with him. And that is all about it." 

“I am sorry. Do not be too hard, Senora," said 
the priest. 

“I hard!" exclaimed the irate woman. “It is 
they who are hard and ungrateful." 

“I would like to do something if I could," said 
the priest. 

“It is too late, Father—they are gone. They 
went this morning. I am up to my eyes in work, 
besides, for my two Indians are very stupid. And 
I am expecting the wagons with the furniture and 
carpets every moment." 


MARY E. MANNIX 


187 


"I will not detain you longer,” said the priest. 
“Where are the others ?” 

“In that old adobe at the foot of the hill,” was 
the reply, “where Juan Peraltes hanged himself, 
and no one will live since. A fine place to choose 
for a dwelling.” 

The priest lifted his hat and turned away. A 
short walk brought him to the hut. He found Tio 
Antonio and Ysadora hard at work cleaning the 
abandoned place. They seemed very cheerful. 

“I am sorry this has happened,” said the priest. 
“Just when prosperity had arrived—it is rather 
unfortunate.” 

“Oh, no. Father,” answered Tio Antonio. “We 
shall be very happy together, Ysadora and I. I 
can earn plenty mending furniture and upholster¬ 
ing. I can renovate mattresses as well as a trades¬ 
man. We shall do very well.” 

“And we shall be happy,” said the young girl. 

“Maria Dominica would make me give up my 
old couch. It was my father’s bed. He died there. 
It has been my bed also for many years. Sooner 
than part with it I gave up my sister-in-law. My 
life with her has not been all flowers, Father. Nor 
has that of little Ysadora. But now we are con¬ 
tent, and shall have enough. We came here be- 


188 


TIO ANTONIO’S OLD SOFA 


cause it has already some furniture that was fall¬ 
ing to decay. I shall mend it. And we do not 
fear Juan Peraltes.” 

The priest had nothing more to say. He re¬ 
traced his steps, after giving them his blessing, 
convinced that they had chosen wisely. 

% * 4s * 

The winter passed pleasantly. Tio Antonio had 
no trouble in keeping the wolf from the door. One 
morning he said to his niece: 

“Ysadora, I will tell you something. The old 
sofa is getting very uncomfortable for a bed. I 
am going to try and fix the springs. I will take it 
into the yard. And if I succeed I believe I will 
recover it with chintz like they use now. The hair¬ 
cloth is worn and very hard. The wood is real 
mahogany—it will look well recovered and pol¬ 
ished/’ 

Ysadora entered into the project with great 
willingness. Together they began to rip up the old 
sofa. 

“Did grandfather give you this, Tio Antonio?” 
she asked. 

“He gave it to me, and he said, ‘There is some¬ 
thing—’ but then came Maria Dominica into the 
room, and that night he died. I think he meant 


MARY E. MANNIX 


189 


to say ‘There is something else I wish to give } r ou, 
Antonio/ but he had not the chance. He thought 
I would take it to pieces, for often I used to say, 
‘Father, I wish I could get my hands on that old 
sofa. I would pull it apart and make of the wood 
a fine prie-dieu for the Padre/ ” 

“And what would grandfather say?” 

“ ‘Wait till I am dead, my son, and then you 
may do as you like with it/ And when he went I 
had not the heart to touch it!” 

“You are kind, Tio Antonio. I would rather 
be here with you in Juan Peraltes’ old adobe than 
with Tia Maria and all her fine furniture. I am 
so happy with you.” 

“And I with you, querida” rejoined the old 
man. 

“Trr, trr, trr,” went the sharp knife of Tio An- 
tonio through the faded gimp that edged the shiny 
haircloth on the front of the sofa. It fell, dusty 
and worn, to the seat. And now the lining. “Trr, 
trr, trr.” Down it came, and with it a pile of 
banknotes—good American greenbacks that had 
been placed, confined only by a couple of rubber 
bands, between the second and third coverings. 

“Oh, what is this ?” cried Tio Antonio, clasping 
his trembling old hands and growing very pale. 


190 


TIO ANTONIO’S OLD SOFA 


But Ysadora counted them and found that they 
numbered no less than five thousand dollars. Old 
Don Ignacio had not forgotten or slighted his 
favorite son, though he had manifested his affec¬ 
tion in a strange and unwonted manner. 

When the sister-in-law heard, from the priest, 
of his good fortune, she was very angry, main¬ 
taining that Tio Antonio had known of the 
banknotes all the time and had purposely concealed 
them. 

“Very well he knew they were there. Padre 
Martelles,” she cried, “but he is a miser, and it 
was to get, as long as he could, his living from me 
that he did not tell of the money. It was a dirty 
trick—a very low and dirty trick he played upon 
us. And to think that my dead Marco had many 
a scruple about the fellow, and could not under¬ 
stand why his father had not provided for the idle, 
useless one. But for me he would have divided 
with him. Ah, well! Marco was the only decent 
one of the family. The old man was like Antonio, 
stingy and mean. I am glad we are well rid of 
Tio Antonio. May the money he says he has 
found do him much good. As for us, we do not 
need it.” 

“It would not be yours if you did,” said the 


MARY E. MANNIX 


191 


priest. “Y ou should not be so uncharitable, 
Senora.” 

“You have never lived with him, Father/’ said 
the Senora. “Stupid as an ox, quiet as a mouse, 
but hearing everything that was said and always 
tinkering, tinkering at jobs that a Patillo should 
be ashamed of.” 

“Well, well,” said the priest, “every one to his 
own spectacles, I suppose. And now that good 
fortune has come to you both, you should both be 
grateful to God and kind to each other.” 

“It was not God who discovered the oil, but my 
own self,” said the Senora; “and will you say, 
Padre, that it was God hid the money in the old 
sofa ?” 

“I am afraid you are not a good Christian, 
Senora,” remarked the priest quietly, rising to go. 

“I not a good Christian!” cried the old woman. 
“I, who had the Bishop of Hermosello to baptize 
all my children, waiting till some of them were five 
years, that his august hands might pour upon 
them the holy waters! I could cry, Father Mar- 
telles, I could cry at what you say to me! Padre 
Bautista never talked to me like that.” 

“Now, now,” said the priest, “I have already 
heard of the differences between yourself and your 


192 


T10 ANTONIO’S OLD SOFA 


late pastor. Do not let prosperity spoil you, as 
adversity soured you. Be a good Christian.” 

The priest went his way, followed by the none 
too devout wishes of the greatest shrew in the 
parish. 

***** 

The oil-well of the Patillos was a mere surface 
streak, which has given out long since. The 
Senora is living on the grudging charity of her 
son and daughter, who have inherited her char¬ 
acteristics. But in the old adobe, made attractive 
now by vines along the walls and brightly bloom¬ 
ing flowers in the garden, peace and contentment 
reign. 

And good Father Martelles kneels each day to 
make his thanksgiving at a velvet-covered prie-dieu 
of polished mahogany, gracefully fashioned by the 
skillful hands of Tio Antonio. 


A Glimpse of the Purple 

BY ALICE DEASE 

“You’ll be having them next in the—in the 
soup tureens !” 

Biddy’s voice was choked with indignation. 
Father Flavin laid down his spoon and spoke re¬ 
provingly, though there was a twinkle in his eye. 

“Tureen, Bridget,” he corrected. “There is only 
one in the house, I believe.” 

“God bless the innocence of him,” muttered 
Biddy to herself, but aloud she expressed her dis¬ 
approval. “And so them sparrows is to litter up 
the post-box with their messy eggs and things. 
And what’s to become of the letters, eh ?” 

“How could I disturb them and the place suit¬ 
ing them so well? Why, in five minutes they’ve 
grown out of all knowledge in it. They were wrens 
just now, Bridget.” 

But Biddy had left the room in disgust. There 
was no getting a sensible answer out of His Bever- 
ence when birds were in question, and indeed it 
was more for the honor of the post-box, the only 


194 


A GLIMPSE OF THE PURPLE 


one that the parish boasted, than from any ill-will 
toward its uninvited inhabitants that the house¬ 
keeper remonstrated. 

His dinner over, Father Flavin stepped into the 
shrubbery that grew close up to the walls of his 
little house and that was a paradise to all his 
feathered parishioners. It was, perhaps, the lone¬ 
liest parish in Ireland. The houses were scattered, 
the inhabitants were few and poor, the wild 
stretches of bog and mountain were treeless and 
bare; but in the priest’s garden there was refuge 
undisturbed for as many birds as could find nest¬ 
ing-place in the close-growing shrubs that the old 
man cared for so tenderly during his leisure hours. 

The objects of Biddy’s reproaches were a pair 
of wrens who had arrived late in the season to find 
all the best spots in the garden already occupied by 
larger, stronger inmates, and the newcomers were 
obliged to retire disconsolately to the very end of 
the plantation, where it was bounded by the so- 
called high road, a lonely thoroughfare which led 
eventually to civilization. Here they discovered a 
perfect nursery for their young, a wooden box with 
a slit in it only wide enough to allow such tiny 
bodies as their own to pass in and out. Here 
Jenny would sit for a fortnight in peace, with her 


ALICE DEASE 


195 


eggs tucked warmly under her; here the young 
brood could grow to maturity, free from danger. 
Straw still hung round the letter hole, and four 
bright eyes peeped and twinkled apprehensively as 
the old priest drew near. 

But their fears were soon allayed. Those gentle, 
shrunken fingers would never harm even the small¬ 
est of God’s creatures; that kindly heart had sym¬ 
pathy in it even for the anxieties of a mother- 
wren. Soon the little builders resumed their oper¬ 
ations, and before its owner’s eyes the letter-box 
was turned into as comfortable a home as baby- 
bird could wish for. One thing, however, troubled 
the old priest. If letters came and were thrust in 
by careless hands, would the tiny creatures have 
courage to face such threatened danger? Yet was 
the post-boy born who, when warned that a bird’s 
nest lay within his reach, could pass it day by day 
and not despoil it? Father Flavin could not put 
such a temptation before Patsey Flood. Some 
other plan of safety must be devised, and Patsey 
must remain in ignorance of the little birds’ re¬ 
treat. 

The old priest’s correspondents could be counted 
on the fingers of one hand. His sister, in the old 
homestead by the sea; a young curate who once. 


196 


A GLIMPSE OF THE PURPLE 


during a time of illness, had done duty for the 
old man and had learned to love and reverence 
him for his humble simplicity; and a companion 
who, fifty years before, had stood beside him at 
the altar and had received with him the sacrament 
of consecration to the service of the divine Master. 

The anniversary of that day was coming round 
again, and from these three friends Father Flavin 
might expect letters, which, though bringing him 
pleasure, might mean death to the ten morsels of 
down that were daily nearing in likeness to a full- 
grown wren. 

Turning thoughtfully homeward, he retraced his 
steps to the house, and opening his seldom-used 
writing-case, he penned a message to each of his 
three friends, begging them to put off sending him 
their yearly greeting until they heard from him 
again. This done, his mind was at rest, for he 
was all unconscious of a meeting that had taken 
place some days before, forty miles away, at the 
residence of his Bishop. A parish had fallen 
vacant in the diocese, populous and important, 
carrying with it the dignity of a canonry at the 
cathedral. 

“I have a candidate who will admirably fill the 
post,” said the Bishop to his council. “But I think 


ALICE DEASE 


197 


that his age and merits entitle Father Flavin to 
the first offer. On hearing his answer—and he 
will hardly accept so onerous a charge—we can 
decide about the other.” 

So over the hills, in Patsey Flood’s bag, a big 
square envelope traveled, bearing on its back the 
episcopal arms. 

A month later Father Flavin stood again before 
his letter-box, watching with delight the first ef¬ 
forts of the nestlings in learning to fly. Then, 
when the tenth brown ball, no bigger than an over¬ 
grown bumblebee, had flown in safety to a neigh¬ 
boring bush, the old priest ventured to unlock and 
open the protecting door. 

A bundle of moss and twigs, loosened from its 
hold, fell at his feet, and with it came the Bishop’s 
letter, stained, discolored, crumpled, yet unmis¬ 
takable. 

With trembling fingers Father Flavin stooped 
to pick it up. This had never entered into his 
calculations, and as he read he thought at first 
that his eyes were deceiving him. But no. A 
month ago it lay in his power to become the pastor 
of one of the best parishes in the diocese, with 
two curates under him, and a stall in the cathedral 
as well. What must the Bishop think of him? 


198 


A GLIMPSE OF THE PURPLE 


What explanation could there be of such neglect, 
such carelessness, such silence ? 

The Bishop could only be congratulating him¬ 
self on having discovered in time the unworthiness 
of one whom he had intended to honor. Humbly 
the old man bowed his head. After all, his Bishop 
had rated him too highly; he was too old, too 
simple for such a post as the one he had just lost— 
and yet! 

Returning to the house, he called for Bridget to 
lay out his Sunday clothes. He had business in 
the town wdiich would keep him out all night, he 
said, and all the while he was wondering how the 
Bishop would take the only explanation, the only 
apology he could give. 

The boy was harnessing the car as Father Flavin 
mounted the narrow stairs and entered his room. 
He sighed as his eye fell on the plain black stock. 
So it was, and so it would be now until the end. 
He had had his glimpse of the purple, but it had 
faded forever. 

The twittering of many birds broke in on his 
regretful reverie, and almost impatiently he 
clapped his hands and so dispersed the clamorous 
feather-clad pensioners who thronged his window- 
ledge, heedless of the disappointment that some 


ALICE DEASE 


199 


among them had unknowingly brought upon their 
benefactor. 

As, in surprise, they flew away, the Angelus 
rang out. From where the old priest stood he 
could see over the garden on to the bleak white 
road beyond, now dotted with workers coming 
homeward for their mid-day meal; fisher-folk, for 
the most part, or bog laborers whom he had bap¬ 
tized, instructed, tended, and chidden, and who 
loved him with a love that it is not given to many 
nowadays to win. Had he received the letter in 
time, had he accepted the offer that it contained, 
he would have been obliged to leave all these, his 
friends, his children. 

At the thought of this, his loss began to assume 
a different aspect. How would another have taken 
the place that he had deserted as leader of these 
wild, wayward, faithful souls? His frown relaxed. 
The sigh of regret died away on his lips, and he 
took up the despised black stock and adjusted it 
with a gentleness scarcely tinged with regret 
Then, remembering the birds, with his usual kind¬ 
ly smile lighting up his face, he threw open the 
window and strewed the sill with the crumbs that 
in the first moment of disappointment he had re¬ 
fused to his pets. 







Larry O’Neill 

BY MAGDALEN ROCK 

It was half an hour past noon on a bright May 
day, when Larry O’Neill, for lack of anything bet¬ 
ter to do, dropped into Christie’s salesrooms. Some 
necessary legal business had obliged him to leave 
his retirement in Donegal, and when he found that 
the family solicitors were not to be hurried into 
any unlawyer-like speed, he had found time heavy 
on his hands. Once he would have had no diffi¬ 
culty in spending a few days pleasantly enough in 
London, but that was prior to the time of the oc¬ 
currence that had transformed the lighthearted 
Captain Lawrence O’Neill into a gloomy and 
morose recluse. 

The famous salesrooms were pretty well filled, 
and Larry found an unoccupied chair, and looked 
indifferently around him. As he did so, the occu¬ 
pant of the next seat turned toward him, eyed 
Larry doubtfully for a few minutes, and then 
held out his hand. 

"Captain O’Neill, isn’t it?” the man said 
eagerly. 


202 


LARRY O’NEILL 


Larry’s face darkened. 

“No—I am in the service no longer, Mr. Hil¬ 
ton/’ he said quietly. 

“Well, you’re Larry O’Neill, anyhow,” Mr. Hil¬ 
ton said, “though I doubted the fact for a minute. 
I never knew you had a taste for bric-a-brac.” 

“Oh, I haven’t!” Larry smiled slightly. “I 
merely strolled in here because I had nothing else 
to do. Are you purchasing?” 

“I have just bought a Kang-he vase,” Mr. Hil¬ 
ton replied. “It is very unique.” Then he sighed. 
“One has to cultivate an interest in something or 
other.” 

“I suppose so,” Larry assented indifferently, and 
rose to his feet. Mr. Hilton did likewise. 

“There’s nothing else I want,” he explained. 
“Come to my fiat for luncheon, will you, 
Larry ?” 

Larry began an excuse. Mr. Hilton interrupted 
him. 

“You’ll do me a kindness, really, old fellow,” 
he urged. “I’m very lonely at times,” and then 
Larry remembered that Mr. Hilton’s wife, to 
whom he had been tenderly attached, had died at 
San Remo seven or eight years before. 

“Thanks, then, I will,” Larry assented, “but I 


MAGDALEN ROCK 


203 


should warn you that Fm not the best of com¬ 
pany.” 

“Neither am I,” Hilton responded. Soon after¬ 
ward the two men were seated at a simple, well- 
cooked luncheon in a quiet street not far from 
Piccadilly. 

“1 couldn’t bear the country,” the elder man 
confessed, “nor the house where Jane and I had 
lived so long alone together. My nephew, who 
will succeed me, occupies the house in the sum¬ 
mer. I brought a couple of the old servants with 
me to London.” 

Larry was sympathetically silent. 

“But you, Larry, why have you turned hermit ? 
Jane liked you—for her sake, excuse what may 
seem an impertinent question,” Mr. Hilton went 
on after a moment. 

Larry looked across the table. 

“Do you not know ?” 

“Know!” Mr. Hilton shook his head. “But 
there—perhaps my question roused painful mem¬ 
ories. Don’t-” 

Larry laughed—a hard, bitter laugh. 

“Painful memories are seldom long away from 
me,” he said. “You know I went to India?” 

Mr. Hilton nodded. 



204 


LARRY O’NEILL 


“Well, I was in command of a troop during a 
period of unrest among the natives. A certain 
tribe was disaffected, and we dreaded a rising. It 
took place, and though we had been in a measure 
expecting it, we were surprised at the moment I 
was in command, and I blundered hopelessly/’ 
“How was that?” 

“I don’t in the least know. I felt drunk, stupid, 
dazed, and my man had to help me into the saddle. 
What orders I gave I have no idea; but we were 
beaten back ignominiously, disgracefully, and 
through me. Only for Tyson, the next in author¬ 
ity, matters would have been worse. As it was, 
India and England rang with the miserable story. 
There were some who said, because I was a Cath¬ 
olic and an Irishman, that I was a traitor.” 

“But could you not account in any way-” 

“In no way. I have no recollection of anything 
really till our defeat was accomplished. I was a 
ruined and disgraced man. For myself, though I 
loved the service, it would not have mattered; but 
my father— The old man believes we are de¬ 
scended from Conn of the Hundred Fights. You 
can guess the blow it was to him to hear his only 
son described as a coward or a traitor.” 

“Larry, you were neither!” 



MAGDALEN ROCK 


205 


“I was one or other to all men. My father never 
openly reproached me or questioned me. Ah, Hil¬ 
ton, I think I could have borne it better if he had. 
I retired to Carrickdun, and I have tried, God 
knows, to make the best of things both for him and 
me. Sometimes I see a look on the old man’s 
face that seems to me to ask for an explanation, 
and I can give none. I wonder you did not hear 
of the affair at the time it occurred.” 

“When was it?” 

Larry mentioned a date. 

“Ah! My wife was dying then, abroad,” Mr. 
Hilton said. “I was only interested in that fact. 
And then—things are speedily forgotten. Some 
new sensation turns up.” 

Larry nodded, a deeper shadow overspreading 
his face. 

“I seldom leave home,” he said, after a moment, 
“but I had to come here. A piece of land was 
sold to the railway company. I dreaded meeting 
any of the set I once knew. I need not have 
feared—not things alone, but people, are forgot¬ 
ten. You are the first to recognize me.” 

Mr. Hilton played nervously with his fork. He 
had liked Larry O’Neill well in the days long past, 
and ventured on a question hesitatingly. 


206 


LARRY O’NEILL 


“And— You were engaged, Larry. Did the 
marriage come off ?” 

“No—how could it? I released Miss Trevor. 
She accepted her release.” 

“Miss Trevor—Constance Trevor.” Mr. Hilton 
thought a moment. “She is unmarried yet. I 
saw her at some art show not so long since—as 

beautiful as ever. Did she act under compulsion? 

* 

Her father was rather determined.” 

“There was no compulsion. Constance simply 
thought as the world thought—I was either a 
traitor or a coward.” 

“Strange!” 

“To none more so than to me,” Larry said. 
“How could any one account for what was un¬ 
accountable? There was only one person who be¬ 
lieved in my honesty and courage.” 

“Who was that?” 

“Mollie Blake. Miss Trevor’s mother was Irish, 
you know. That’s how my acquaintance with the 
family began. Mrs. Trevor was Mollie’s aunt. 
Poor Mollie! She was an orphan, unprovided for, 
and exceedingly simple, young, unformed, and 
quite ignorant of the world, too. Yet her vigorous 
and foolish championship gave me comfort. I 
wonder what became of the child ?” 


MAGDALEN ROCK 


207 


Mr. Hilton shook his head. 

“Like you, I have not mixed much with my 
kind.” 

There was a long silence. Mr. Hilton was not 
an adept at the art of making conversation. He 
tried to think of something to talk about, while 
Larry sat grave and abstracted, his thoughts far 
back in the past. The host was relieved by a sum¬ 
mons from his man servant, and left the room. 
When he returned he carried a vase in his hand. 
Larry had not moved. 

“This is my recent purchase,” Mr. Hilton be¬ 
gan. “It belonged to Sir Stephen Mereham, once 
Foreign Secretary. He died a year ago.” 

“Yes,” Larry responded, “I know. A sister of 
his was married to an officer in my—the regiment. 
Mrs. Tyson was a pretty, hysterical little woman, 
but very kind. She was much affected by that un¬ 
fortunate affair. More than she had the least 
right to be, seeing we were mere acquaintances.” 

Mr. Hilton had no desire to go back to the un¬ 
satisfactory subject. He began divesting the vase 
of its inner wrappings. 

“Just look at this, Larry,” he said; “even if 
you aren’t an art critic, the vase will appeal-” 

There was a loud crash. The precious vase had 



208 


LARRY O’NEILL 


slipped from its owner’s hands and fallen on the 
side of the brass fender. 

“Oh !” Larry ejaculated. Mr. Hilton was gazing 
at the fragments in consternation. 

“What a pity!” Larry said. “And the thing is 
shattered, I fear. No patching of it up ?” 

“No, no.” Mr. Hilton stooped over the pieces 
and lifted a couple of sheets of paper. Half 
mechanically he began reading them. 

“God bless me, God bless me!” he cried. “How 
on earth—what on earth!” He dropped into a 
chair and went on reading, while Larry retreated 
to the windows and looked out. When he turned 
from his momentary contemplation of the opposite 
houses Mr. Hilton was still reading, with dis¬ 
tended eyes, the thin, crumpled sheets of paper. 

“Larry, Larry ! Do you know what this is ! It 
is most marvelous, most wonderful! How fortu¬ 
nate I am to find it! God bless me!” Mr. Hilton 
ejaculated excitedly. 

“What is the matter, Hilton?” Larry inquired. 

“And you here! W'hy, it is simply astonishing, 
dramatic!” Mr. Hilton tried to compose himself, 
and held forth the sheets: “This is a letter from 
Mrs. Tyson to her brother, Sir Stephen. He must 
have stuck it into the vase.” 


MAGDALEN ROCK 


209 


“Indeed !” Larry observed. 

“And forgot about it. He was absent-minded, 
it is said, or perhaps he compromised with 
his conscience. One doesn’t know, can never 
know,” Mr. Hilton said. “Read the letter, 
Larry.” 

“Why should I read what was not intended for 
my eyes?” 

“Nor for mine,” Mr. Hilton laughed; then 
added solemnly: “Why, Larry, it is your justifica¬ 
tion. It was Mrs. Tyson that had you—drugged.” 

“Drugged!” 

“Yes. She w T as nervous about her husband 
going into action, into danger—a poor, foolish 
goose of a woman she was, I should judge. She 
obtained some powerful native drug from an 
Indian servant, which she determined to adminis¬ 
ter to her husband when the hour of danger ar¬ 
rived. The dose was warranted to produce a form 
of illness that would render the person taking it 
quite unconscious. The illness was to resemble an 
attack of heart trouble that would even deceive 
medical men. Well, the woman placed the powder 
in a cup of coffee, and in the confusion of the 
moment you drank it, and not Tyson.” 

Larry raised his hand to his head. 


210 


LARRY O’NEILL 


“Wait a moment, please. I remember the cof¬ 
fee. It tasted queer, and I did not finish it.” 

“Consequently you missed the full dose/’ 

“Tyson got all the credit out of the rising. He 
is General Tyson now/’ Larry said. “He was a 
brave soldier.” 

“His wife was not a fit mate for him evidently. 
She did not confess anything till your ruin was 
accomplished. Then she wrote to her brother, 
telling him all.” 

“I can not believe it!” 

“There it is in black and white. What are you 
going to do, Larry ?” 

Larry made no reply. 

“Look here,” said Hilton, “let me interview Mrs. 
Tyson. I know her. She is a society woman, and 
capable of denying the affair altogether if she is 
allowed. Let me tackle her. She might suspect 
you and be prepared.” 

Thus it was that Mr. Hilton journeyed into 
fashionable quarters that same afternoon, and was 
fortunate enough to find Mrs. Tyson alone in her 
drawing-room. He told the story of that inter¬ 
view to Larry O'Neill at dinner. 

“She’s a poor, weak creature, and capitulated al¬ 
most at once. She was simply bewildered into 


MAGDALEN ROCK 


211 


doing so. The lapse of time had left her almost 
forgetful of India. What will you do, Larry ?” 

Mr. Hilton was not left unanswered as before. 

“Nothing, I think. So many years have passed, 
and I have grown accustomed to the present state 
of things. My father, of course, shall know.” 

Hilton determined differently. 

“Oh, well, perhaps you are right,” he com¬ 
mented, in non-committal tones; but next day he 
sought and obtained an interview with an impor¬ 
tant personage in the Foreign Service. He also 
called on Miss Trevor. As a result of these two 
calls Larry received a couple of invitations. The 
interview with the important man did not last 
long. Larry was determined to leave the past 
alone, and perhaps the Foreign Office individual 
was not altogether sorry. His interview with Con¬ 
stance Trevor lasted longer. The passing years 
had touched the lady but lightly. She was fully 
as beautiful, perhaps more so, than when Larry 
had seen her last; nevertheless, he greeted her, 
much to his own surprise, without a quickened 
pulse. 

“No, don’t apologize, Constance,” Larry said. 
“I may call you Constance, may I not? You 
could do nothing but follow the example of all the 


212 


LARRY O’NEILL 


world. Nobody kept belief in me—well, except¬ 
ing little Mollie Blake. By-the-by, has she mar¬ 
ried yet?” 

“No. She developed modern independent no¬ 
tions after my mother’s death, and is a hospital 
nurse. Just at present she is spending a part of 
her annual holiday with me. She will be down 
in a moment or two. Won’t you take a cup of 
tea—Larry ?” .* 

Not only on that afternoon, but on several sub¬ 
sequent ones, did Larry partake of tea in Miss 
Trevor’s drawing-room. Constance was never de¬ 
ceived. It was not for her sake he lingered in 
London even when his business at the lawyers’ 
had been accomplished. Four months later Hilton 
was induced to visit Carrickdun, and one Septem¬ 
ber evening he and Larry’s father—the latter 
younger in looks and spirit than for years back— 
sat smoking by an open window while Larry and 
his wife strolled about in the gathering dusk. 

“Mollie is just the wife for him,” Mr. O’Neill 
commented. “She says she would have mar¬ 
ried him at that unfortunate time had he asked 
her; but, of course, she was only seventeen 
then.” 


“And Irish-hearted,” Mr. Hilton replied. “I 


MAGDALEN ROCK 


213 


have a sort of pity for Miss Trevor, and,” the 
speaker laughed, “and for myself.” 

“Yourself?” 

“Yes. Didn't the truth come out through the 
breaking of my beautiful Kang-he vase? It was 
smashed, you know, and it was a beauty,” and 
Mr. Hilton laughed again, lightly, as if he were 
well pleased. 






















The Sound of a Laugh 

BY ANNA T. SADLIER 

A laugh, clear, ringing, and melodious, roused 
Jim Hollis pleasantly from his sleep in the morris- 
chair which he had placed luxuriously under the 
spreading branches of a tree. He had reclined 
there at first, reveling in the much-needed rest 
following upon a strenuous winter, drinking in 
the balmy air fragrant with the scent of a dozen 
gardens. He had come to this secluded spot upon 
a matter of business, and had lingered, finding its 
calm, its seclusion, and its simple, rustic beauty a 
panacea for the ills engendered by the busy life of 
the metropolis. 

As he lay there, surrounded, permeated, as it 
were, by the summer brightness, his thoughts had 
gradually trailed away into slumber whence he 
was aroused by that sound of mirth, proceeding 
from the other side of a high fence. He listened 
a while, smiling sympathetically, until he was 
seized with an irresistible desire to discover who 
it was that could laugh, as it seemed, from the 
very depth of a carefree and happy heart. Near 


216 


THE SOUND OF A LAUGH 


the fence stood a ladder, upon which Jim Hollis 
mounted cautiously, until his eyes were on a level 
with the top of the wall. Screened from possible 
observation by the spreading branches of a tree 
which drooped downward into the neighboring en¬ 
closure, Jim Hollis grew bolder and mounted to 
the very top rung. 

For the sight that met his eyes was even more 
attractive than the sound which had drawn him 
hither. A young girl, in a blue gown that exactly 
matched the color of her eyes, stood under an 
apple-tree, shaking down upon herself and a fair¬ 
haired child, who clung to her skirts, a shower of 
leaves and, now and again, a golden pippin, which 
hit her smartly and caused her to laugh again. 
She laughed in sympathy with the child’s glee and, 
as it seemed, for the very joy of living. This 
whole-hearted joyousness, the brightness of face, 
the freedom and grace of movement, were far 
more pleasant to the world-wearied eyes of the 
gazer than any mere perfection of detail. With a 
laugh upon his own lips, Jim Hollis leaned for¬ 
ward in full enjoyment of this scene. There was 
a crackling and rending of boughs, a rustling of 
leaves, and the inquisitor fell crashing through the 
foliage. This was happily so thick as to partially 


ANNA T. SADLIER 


217 


break the fall that might otherwise have been 
serious, and which landed Jim Hollis on the grass 
but a few yards distant from the girl and the 
child. The former stood startled, horrified, and 
stooped as if to raise the child in her arms, pre¬ 
paratory to flight. On second thoughts, however, 
and perhaps on closer inspection of the intruder, 
she advanced a little. 

“Are you hurt?” she inquired; “can I help 
you ?” 

Her gravity was preternatural, and matched 
that of the child, who stood regarding the prostrate 
figure with round, wide-open eyes. His infantile 
lack of humor saw nothing comical in the appear¬ 
ance of a man crashing downward like some huge 
bird through the tree, and lying in a disordered 
heap upon the ground. Jim was acutely conscious 
that it was far otherwise with the girl, and that 
her gravity was too intense to be natural. He an¬ 
swered her inquiry stiffly, saying that he was quite 
unhurt, and rising, stood with clothing awry, rum¬ 
pled hair, and a bitter sense of mortification. It 
was the child who broke the awkward silence that 
followed: 

“Why did oo fall into our garden?” the boy 
exclaimed, “and oo broke our tree!” 


218 


TEE SOUND OF A LAUGH 


“Be quiet, Phil,” chided the girl, but her face 
twitched, and JinPs reddened. 

“I scarcely understand,” she began, “how you 
came to-” 

She could go no further. Her sense of the ludi¬ 
crous overmastered every other consideration, and 
she broke into a peal of laughter. The young man 
regarded her at first with dignified resentment, 
but her mirth was contagious, and in a moment or 
two he was laughing as though he never meant to 
stop again. And that was the beginning of their 
acquaintance. 

Needless to say it was not the end. As it 
chanced, Jim Hollis had letters, which hitherto he 
had not taken the trouble to present, to this very 
lady of the garden, Miss Elinor Robinson. She 
dwelt in the pretty wooden house attached to that 
piece of ground. She had remained there, after 
the death of her parents, with a couple of old ser¬ 
vants and her little brother, Phil, who was at the 
time of her bereavement a mere infant. She was 
under the guardianship, however, of an uncle and 
aunt, who occupied a large house across the road. 
To that couple, as Jim Hollis presently remem¬ 
bered, he had also brought introductory letters. 



ANNA T. SADLIER 


219 


The acquaintance, despite the letters, did not 
progress as rapidly as Jim had hoped. There was 
a reserve about the little lady of the apple-tree 
which was not very easy to penetrate. Jim Hollis, 
one late August afternoon, still loitering in the 
morris-chair under the self-same tree, let his 
thoughts wander to the other side of the fence. 
All was still there, and he wondered when he 
might venture to intrude again upon that sacred 
privacy, or if the old couple opposite would be 
likely to ask him once more to meet Elinor' at 
“high tea.” He brought the girl before his mental 
vision, fresh, radiant, and laughing, the very per¬ 
sonification of youth and spring. 

His musings were suddenly interrupted by a 
scream, so piercing, so heartrending, that involun¬ 
tarily Jim sprang to his feet. It was Elinor who 
had uttered that piercing wail of anguish, and the 
young man sprang at once upon the ladder, which 
still stood against the wall. There, under the 
apple-boughs, sat Elinor, her face deathly pale, her 
blue eyes streaming with tears, and across her 
knee the inanimate, apparently lifeless body of her 
little brother. 

That image of overwhelming grief smote upon 
Jim Hollis with the full force of contrast. It was 


220 


THE SOUND OF A LAUGH 


as if he had seen a fair tree, in its vernal fresh¬ 
ness, destroyed by a deadly bolt. The young man 
let himself down by a quick movement into the 
garden, almost at the very spot where he had be¬ 
fore so ignominiously landed. Elinor was praying 
aloud, with a thrilling fervor and intensity, call¬ 
ing upon the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Mother 
of God. At sight of Jim she raised her eyes an 
instant to his face: 

“Go for a doctor!” she said; “the servants are 
away. I have no one to send.” 

Jim sped upon his errand, which, by means of 
a bicycle, he accomplished in an incredibly short 
space of time. But he did not wait for the doctor 
to get the necessary restoratives, nor his carriage. 
Returning, he knelt beside the boy, and at Elinor’s 
agonized request felt the feeble pulse and listened 
for the pulsations of the heart. 

“He is still living!” he cried, and as the girl 
uttered a fervent “Thank God!” the doctor’s car¬ 
riage-wheels were heard approaching. Neither of 
the two ever forgot those moments of suspense 
while the physician made his examination with 
professional deliberation. Elinor’s eyes were fixed 
upon his face, while she clasped and unclasped her 
hands in the intensity of her fear. The doctor’s 


ANNA T. 8.AD LIE R 


221 


verdict was favorable. So far as he could judge, 
there were no fatal symptoms, but he enjoined per¬ 
fect quiet, care, and rest. 

It was Jim Hollis who carried the boy upstairs 
and laid him upon the snow-white bed, while the 
physician gave his instructions to Elinor. And 
during the days that followed the young man was 

entirely at the service of the two. 

* * * * * 

When all was fair and smiling again, and the 
invalid could be brought downstairs once more 
and out into the garden, Phil would scarcely allow 
Jim Hollis out of his sight. The latter humored 
every whim, and exhausted his ingenuity in pleas¬ 
ing and amusing the tiny sufferer. When, at last, 
Phil was on the way to complete recovery, Jim 
passed one afternoon through the garden gate, 
which had become to him as the portal of paradise, 
with a heavy heart. He had deferred his de¬ 
parture as long as possible, and had likewise de¬ 
layed entering upon that matter of business which 
had primarily brought him from town. 

After he had sat playing a while with the boy’s 
closely clipped curls and watching Elinor em¬ 
broider in an unusual and abstracted silence, he 
suddenly said: 


222 


THE SOUND OF A LAUGH 


“I am afraid I shall have to go away to-morrow 
or next day/’ 

Were the blue eyes really dimmed an instant? 
Did the laughing mouth quiver? Jim could 
scarcely tell, for Elinor, after a hasty glance and 
a brief exclamation of regret, went on with her 
embroidery. 

“It has been so very pleasant,” Jim began. 

“And you were so kind during Phil’s illness,” 
Elinor observed gratefully. 

“I wish 1 could really render you a service!” 
Jim protested fervently. “If I go away to-mor¬ 
row-” 

“Oo can’t go to-morrow!” interposed Phil, irri¬ 
tably. “I want oo to stay.” 

“Do you want me to stay, Elinor?” inquired 
Jim, “or, at least, will you let me come back?” 

“1 am afraid you can never come back here,” 
explained the girl, “for we shall not be here. 
Didn’t you know the house was sold in the winter ? 
Though it is breaking my heart, I shall have to 
leave. I only wonder that the new proprietor has 
not turned us out before now.” 

“Elinor!” cried Jim, bending forward hastily, 
“there is only one condition upon which the pro¬ 
prietor will take possession, and that is that 



ANNA T. SADLIER 


223 


you and Phil promise to become permanent resi¬ 
dents.” 

“Permanent residents!” stammered Elinor. 

“Just the three of us,” pleaded Jim. “You two 
and myself, who happens to be the proprietor. Let 
us be married soon, dearest, that we may enjoy the 
rest of the summer together.” 

Jim did not find it so very hard to persuade 
Elinor, for she could not deny that she found it a 
sufficiently attractive prospect to remain in the 
dear old place, with the added charm of this new 
and most delightful companionship. 

“And to think, dearest,” Jim commented, “that 
it all came about through the sound of a laugh.” 









A Knight-at-Arms 

BY ANNA BLANCHE McGILL 

Much as they had desired to maintain neu¬ 
trality, the time had arrived when no longer might 
the Kentuckians hope that their State could be 
the center of calm in the tempest sweeping over 
the country. No longer might their gentle hills, 
their dream-held mountain fastnesses, their softly 
rolling meadows of blue grass and pennyroyal, 
rest undisturbed by the angry tramp of war and 
all its sad, grim consequences. To and fro across 
the State and round its edges marched and 
marched companies of contending armies. 

And although the State as a whole had been 
drawn into the vortex of that unhappy whirlwind, 
it might have seemed that in one locality at least 
peace might find refuge. A little over a mile from 
Bardstown, one of the oldest towns in the State, 
where low hills and broad meadows make one of 
the loveliest Kentucky landscapes, in the early 
nineteenth century, a community of gentle Re¬ 
ligious had taken up its abode. Such an atmos¬ 
phere of serenity and remoteness from city and 


226 


A KNIGHT-AT-ARMS 


town seemed an ideal habitation wherein not only 
to live the life of the spirit themselves, but wherein 
to bring up young girls in an atmosphere of re¬ 
ligion and culture. Sixty years of ordered, beau¬ 
tiful, progressive life had given the old convent 
school such a tone of serenity and loveliness as to 
make one fancy that if the whole outside world 
were ravaged and disturbed, here, at "Nazareth,” 
might peace and security and beauty always find a 
refuge. 

Yet here where all seemed so quiet and so 
lovely, here, too, were alarm and anxiety, sorrow 
and suspense. For what with the difficulties and, 
indeed, dangers of travel in those early, excited 
sixties, the return of Northern or Southern pupils 
to their homes was out of the question. So did 
not those several hundred daughters and sisters 
and cousins among the good Sisters and pupils in 
the famous old academy endure more solicitude 
than if they had been within sight and call of their 
loved ones? Faith and trust in God, of course, 
sustained the Sisters and persuaded them that they 
and their charges would suffer no disturbance, even 
though rumors came that Louisville, thirty miles 
away, rang with expectation of Buell and Bragg 
and inevitable conflict, and that "Morgan’s men” 


ANNA BLANCHE McGILL 


227 


would actualty be in Nazareth’s very neighborhood. 
“What of it ?” said the brave-hearted, gentle 
Superioress to some of the tremulous young Sis¬ 
ters. “God will take care of us and our chil¬ 
dren.” 

This splendid assurance might sustain the little 
nuns, Mother’s fine serenity might communicate 
itself to the troubled hearts of the schoolgirls, but 
there was one in the Nazareth community who 
knew no serene content these days, one who might 
have been the head of the Order and the school, 
so heavily did responsibility and anxiety rest upon 
his troubled heart. The victim of this solicitude 
was a slender, bent, mild-faced old man, who 
might be seen anywhere doing anything—serving 
as acolyte in the little chapel, helping Sister Mary 
with her flowers, rendering those other innumer¬ 
able services that prove the necessity for the 
“stronger sex” in a world where some misguided 
folks would fain think the “gentler” equal to all 
emergencies. 

Nazareth had no such erroneous ideas; “Daddy 
Goss,” so named by generation after generation of 
Nazareth schoolgirls, was a most important per¬ 
sonage in that community of gentle womenfolk. 
There is no doubt that, simple as a child though 


223 


A KNIGHT -AT-ARMS 


he was, and most meek and humble of heart, under 
the press of present circumstances Daddy consid¬ 
ered himself the most important personage— 
saving the presence of his reverence, the chaplain. 

As a small boy, if indeed Daddy Goss had ever 
been one—he seemed eternally old—he had lived in 
the neighborhood and had fallen into the way of 
helping the Sisters with those little jobs a boy can 
do so inimitably. As the garden grew he was pressed 
into service. Sister Mary, with her great knowledge 
of chemistry and botany, having made him a 
“scientific gardener’ , before the outside world 
knew and talked much about such a thing. Gradu¬ 
ally he had become so indispensable that he had 
gone to live at Nazareth. Simple, unassuming as 
he was, in his secret soul lay a persuasion that it 
was a good thing. How could all those women 
struggle along without a man to help them ? And 
in his gentle soul waxed that beautiful protective 
spirit divine Providence plants in the heart of 
man. 

Till now that spirit had expressed itself but in 
gentle services. Meantime, though not possessing 
vaulting ambition to assert and maintain this 
chivalric guardianship, as is the way with men. 
Daddy Goss felt the dignity of his position. In 


ANNA BLANCHE McGILL 


229 


his mild soul he scarcely dreamed that any mo¬ 
ments of glory awaited him, dear and desired as 
they are of all masculine hearts. Yet now, strange 
as it seemed, it appeared that his hour at last had 
come! At last an occasion when that splendid 
spirit of protection was to be proved and tested! 
Nazareth was now his post of honor, his duty that 
of being her sentinel! 

It was all very well, he reflected in his inmost 
heart, for the Sisters to take things so lightly. But 
if indeed it were true that the soldiers were mov¬ 
ing from and toward Louisville and Bardstown, 
that Morgan’s men were coming through this sec¬ 
tion of the country, things were not so safe. Now 
that the Nazareth farm was one of the best in the 
locality, what better would Union men or Con¬ 
federates want than to settle down on the lovely 
campus a day or so and reinforce their com¬ 
missariat with good fresh things from the fields? 
It was a thought of terror to Daddy Goss by day 
and night. All the greater terror was it that he 
shared his anxiety with no one, but nursed it 
secretly—all day long, when chance permitted, peer¬ 
ing toward Louisville, toward Bardstown; scan¬ 
ning the lovely landscape for glimpses of a blue 
or gray coat in the distance, that far blue distance 


230 


A KNIGHT-AT-ARMS 


which sometimes could so easily convert into omi¬ 
nous shapes the deep green of a young elm, the 
gray of a birch or silver-poplar grove; while 
through the night, though the nights were cold, 
Daddy slept with his windows open that he might 
hear the slightest sound, and he kept one eye and 
one ear open, and sometimes both, and always his 
clothes close at hand—should the worst indeed 
happen! 

Of course, it was bound to happen. When did 
any such deep anxiety fail to forerun the event? 
The night was moonless, and still with that still¬ 
ness which broods upon such quiet places when 
peace lies upon the hearts and minds and spirits 
of those who dwell there. The white convent 
among the star-lit trees seemed scarcely real and 
substantial, seemed rather wrapped around with 
the beauty of a dream, as if passed indeed into that 
realm of supernatural peace and blessed presences 
to which its life by day strove and aspired. 

And yet with all this almost sacred hush upon it, 
Daddy Goss’s sleeping eye and ear suddenly awoke. 
Surely he heard a noise other than the stir of the 
summer breeze in the long avenue of elms that led 
to the world outside ? Yes, yes, yes! the old man 
was sure “they” had come at last! For the human 


ANNA BLANCHE McGILL 


231 


stir, gentle as it strives to be, is unmistakable! 
“They” had come, and his hour with them! 
Hastily he scrambled into his clothes, grabbed his 
gun, and ran to the window. 

Daddy Goss’s gun was a weapon most appropri¬ 
ate to its wielder—a gentle weapon, harmless in¬ 
deed, and ancient. He had secretly bought it at 
an old hardware store from a dealer who did not 
think it necessary to mention to such a pacific¬ 
looking old man the fact that the weapon had long 
since passed into a condition of innocuous desue¬ 
tude. Such a gentle old man could never be want¬ 
ing to kill as much as a partridge. And for pur¬ 
poses of terrification, the ramshackle old blunder¬ 
buss possessed about as menacing an aspect as any 
one could desire to frighten his adversaries. To 
Daddy Goss himself it was a most savage-appear¬ 
ing instrument of torture. It fairly made him 
shiver as he took it out after hearing the soldiers 
were likely to come. He had never shot a rabbit 
in his life, but these last several days he had rubbed 
up the old gun, surreptitiously in the evenings lest 
the Sisters should see it and take alarm, and he 
went through a good many strategies to keep it 
hidden from the good nuns who cleaned his room 
from time to time. 


232 


A KNIGHT-AT-ARMS 


Confident in his savage weapon, his own brave 
right arm, Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, the 
dear old knight of Nazareth had ensconced him¬ 
self at the window, where cold shivers ran up and 
down his spine. “They” "had come! And he was 
one man against the Union army—or was it the 
Confederate? He didn’t know or care—he was 
against both! Yes, there they were ! Already had 
they come down the elm-avenue—they were just 
beneath his window—luckily in a side wing of 
the priest’s house, still a little remote from the 
convent building, so the Sisters were probably not 
yet disturbed; while, as luck would have it, the 
chaplain had gone over to Bardstown for the 
night. Daddy Goss nearly choked. They were 
under his window! It was so dark he couldn’t see 
the color of their coats, but he didn’t care what 
color they were. Any soldiers at all would scare 
his poor Sisters out of their five wits! He could 
hear them whispering: 

“It’s the convent school, isn’t it? Let’s rouse 
’em up! The prudent nuns are sure to have a 
good pantry. Let’s beat around to the farm yon¬ 
der—” Then: “Hush, man, there’s somebody at 
that window.” 


“What is it—a nun or a schoolgirl ?” 


ANNA BLANCHE McGILL 


233 


“I don't know. It’s got a gun!” 

Meantime the evident head of the foraging party 
had come up beneath the window on hearing that 
some one was leaning from it. And as he drew 
close, Daddy leaned out farther, the old gun most 
crookedly pointed, and as he leaned, calling out to 
the men below: 

“Oh, please, sors, pass on! We be all females 
here !” 

Round the group huddled below in the darkness 
a low laugh could be heard. 

“It's strange voices ye have, then,” called back 
a young-voiced soldier. 

“What place is this ?” asked the one in authority. 

“It's Nazareth, sor. Oh, please, don't disturb 
our peace, please lead off your men! We're 
nayther Unions nor Confederates, here—we're 
both!” 

“How far is it to Bardstown ?” 

“Only a mile and a half, sor, by the railroad.” 

The captain turned to his men—Daddy could 
hear him: “There's no use to disturb them, since 
they're all womenfolks, even if one has a bass 
voice. Let's go on to Bardstown.” 

From his window Daddy Goss could see the 
figures wandering away in the darkness, down the 


234 


A KNIGHT-AT-ARM8 


long avenue of elms to the road, where the last of 
them finally vanished in the night. But even 
when this last one had disappeared, Daddy watched 
and watched, till finally he fell asleep at his post, 
where the cool morning air woke him with the 
first chirping birds. The hour of his glory had 
come and gone—and yet not gone, either, for next 
day it lived again in Daddy’s brave recital, and 
many times thereafter in the traditions of the old 
school. And no one has ever thought of attrib¬ 
uting pusillanimity to Daddy Goss on that night 
of his brave defense, when he forswore his sex, and 
begged the Union or Confederate army, whichever 
it was, to “Pass on, good sors; we be all female* 
here!” 


The Ghost of Ned Malone 


BY MAUD REGAN 

We had been holding our customary twilight 
symposium: the Widow Connor, Mrs. Flynn, Mary 
Nolan, and I, and as dusk merged insensibly into 
night, and shadowy curtains made mysteries of the 
tiny room’s familiar corners, and a keening au¬ 
tumn gale came wailing forlornly over the thatch, 
our talk drifted to ghosts. 

It all arose out of Mrs. Flynn’s reminder that 
next day but one would be “All Souls”—that day 
when living and dead keep their immemorial tryst, 
and the barrier between the worlds wears so thin 
that one can almost feel the clasp of supplicating 
hands, and catch the faint echo of those voices 
which made the music of old days. 

I was a stranger in Tyrconnel, a fact which its 
beautiful hospitality made it at all times difficult to 
remember, but which betrayed itself, as now, in 
our lack of common memories. 

For me, the distant surf-beat and keening gale 
had no tragical associations. I only dallied with 
the fancy that on some such eerie blast must have 


236 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


journeyed “the ghost of Modred, slain,” with its 
haunting message “hollow, hollow, hollow, all de¬ 
light,” whereas to the Widow Connor it brought a 
very real and poignant memory of a certain sun- 
washed morning upon which “Himself” had set out 
to the mackerel fishing from which he was not to 
return. 

Fragments of her recital broke across my reverie, 
thus: 

“And I was dead agin it, knowin’ that the seams 
of the ould boat had been gapin’ in the sun, but 
nothin’ ud suit him only he’d go. So he was up 
bright and early tinkerin’ at it, so as to get it fixed 
before the fish ud take themselves off where ther’d 
be no follyin’ thim, and times bein’ mortal hard, 
that ud a been a rale misfortune—or so he thought, 
poor man, not knowin’ the worse that was before 
us! Well, he had great conthrivin’ and patchin’, 
till in the ind he was rale plaised with it. ‘There,’ 
says he, givin’ it a little kick, ‘with any sort of 
dacint weather, that’ll do finely.’ But oh, the con¬ 
trariness of things!” continued Mrs. Connor with a 
patient sigh for the old tragedy. “ ’Twasn’t long 
before the sky that had been so blue and shinin’ be¬ 
gan to cloud over wid ugly little dhrifts, like packs 
of dirty wool, and puffs of wind came whippin’ and 


MAUD REGAN 


237 


tormentin' the little waves that had been no more 
than plisintly dancin', till in no time at all it had 
thim rowlin' so black and threatenin' it ud make 
your heart stand still to watch thim. I stud the 
afternoon long on the top of the cliff beyant, hardly 
able to keep me feet with the wind that was tearin’ 
the very clothes from me back, strainin’ me eyes 
over that terrifyin' waste of water for a sight of 
the onld boat, and him I was never to see agin in 
this world—God rest him!" 

“ 'Tis well for ns all we have a better one to look 
to!" said Mary Nolan softly. In the silence fol¬ 
lowing upon this characteristic reflection, the door 
was flung open, and seemingly as powerless before 
the sweep of the wind as the flurry of dead leaves 
that accompanied their entrance, Mrs. Murtagh 
and Honor were hurled incontinently into the 
midst of our coterie. 

“Glory be, but 'tis the wild night!" exclaimed 
Mrs. Murtagh breathlessly, as she beamed upon us 
with that smile of radiant good fellowship which 
transfigured a face otherwise plain. “But hearin' 
you were leavin' to-morrow, ma'am," she continued, 
while for a moment the smile became my own ex¬ 
clusive property, “nothin' ud suit Honor here but 
I must bring her over to bid ye good-by.” 


238 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


“How kind that was of you both,” I replied in 
all sincerity, for merely to look on Honor was joy, 
and the obstinate gaiety of Mrs. Murtagh in face 
of all manner of discouragement was a quality to 
admire and imitate. 

I had heard her respond to one of Mrs. Flynn’s 
too frequent “Jeremiads,” “Why don’t you look on 
the bright side of it, woman dear ?” 

“The sorra a bright side there’s to it,” Mrs. 
Flynn had answered, shaking a mournful head. 

“Thin polish up the dark wan,” had re¬ 
plied, nothing daunted, this unconscious ex¬ 
ponent of what Stevenson calls “the livableness of 
life.” 

Following upon her arrival the tone of reminis¬ 
cence grew gradually brighter. I drew Honor to a 
little stool beside me with that fresh realization 
which every meeting brought, of a beauty so differ¬ 
ent from all Tyrconnel’s accepted standards, as to 
pass unobserved at least by the feminine and ma¬ 
ture element. 

Indications were not lacking that it met with 
juster appreciation in other quarters, where bur¬ 
nished rippling hair that w r as a glorious blending of 
red and brown and golden tints, and the uncon¬ 
scious witchery of brown, dark-lashed eyes and 


MAUD REGAN 


239 


curving scarlet lips, worked a havoc which prudent 
mothers opined to be “out of all raison.” 

Sighing Mickys and Thadys were encouraged to- 
the contemplation of black braids and demure gray 
eyes by elders with whom ruddy tresses were an in¬ 
herited dislike, and Honor drained dregs of un¬ 
guessed bitterness in the knowledge that she was 
secretly called “the Dane.” There had been un¬ 
hallowed moments when I had toyed with the temp¬ 
tation of bringing Honor back with me to America, 
when fascinating color schemes of green and brown 
had suggested themselves in conjunction with those 
glorious, misprized tresses, when I had seen her 
journeying down dazzling vistas ending in a New¬ 
port villa or a brownstone mansion—till suddenly 
some fresh revelation of the beautiful “other-world- 
liness” of Tyrconnel would convince me that it 
would be but to barter a priceless birthright for a 
mess of unsavory pottage. 

And so Honor would live and die in Tyrconnel,, 
and never know how the “fairy godmother” had 
wrestled and overcome, steeling herself to an in¬ 
evitable parting. 

Across my reverie came the stream of the Widow 
Connor’s reflections. 

“I suppose ? tis only natural we should be think- 


240 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


in’ of ghosts, wid All Souls’ near, but I’ve niver 
seen one meself, though many’s the time I’ve 
wished those that are gone from us might come 
back to whisper a word of comfort. But sorra the 
use there is in wishin’, any more than there was 
strainin’ me eyes across the black say the day I stud 
out in the drivin’ gale waitin’ for poor Larry.” 

“Whin they speak of places bein’ haunted,” 
timidly began Mary Nolan, she of the soft voice 
and dolorous, patient eyes, “I’m thinkin’ ’tis the 
way my cabin beyant is haunted. ’Tis the truth 
I’m tellin’ ye, that there are fine aivenin’s whin 
sittin’ at the door I can almost see me father, God 
rest him, bindin’ over the dhrills of pitaties in the 
little field that was always a heart-scald to him be 
raison of the stones; or can hear Thady, the crathur, 
talkin’ to me poor mother about the great days that 
were before us whin he’d come back from Ameriky 
wid his fortune made. 

“ ‘ ’Twill be grand intirely, ’twill so. Sure, we’ll 
hardly feel the time passin’,’ she’d say, well knowin’ 
how his heart was set on goin’. 

“Perhaps you’ll think it foolish,” she continued 
with wistful timidity, “but whiles ’tis meself seems 
the quarest ghost of all lookin’ on at them—me 
father, sthrong an’ tall an’ handsome, Thady wid 


MAUD REGAN 


241 


the world before him, an* only meself, so bint an’ 
gray they’d none of thim know me, seem’ the sad 
endin’ of it all.” 

“I’m thinkin’ we’ve all seen ghosts like that. 
’Tis lncky we didn’t meet thim whin we were like 
Honor here. A great turn ’twould have given us 
then to see the quare ould scarecrows we’d live to 
be.” 

Thus moralized Mrs. Flynn, while Honor’s lu¬ 
minous gaze, resting upon the furrowed face, strove 
vainly to rehabilitate the past at which she hinted, 
or to pierce a future when her own fresh curves and 
rose tints should have sunk to such tragic ruin. 

“Speakin’ of ghosts,” it was Mrs. Murtagh’s rich, 
hearty voice that roused us from the train of rev¬ 
erie suggested by the previous speakers, “reminds 
me of a story, and a thrue one, that wint the rounds 
of the parish where I spint me youthful days. 
’Twas about a lad named Ned Malone that lived 
not far from me father’s place, an’ though ’tis 
forty years since I laid eyes on his curly head an’ 
laughin’ eyes, an’ tall, straight figure, I’ve not seen 
in the weary length of thim his aqual for down¬ 
right handsomeness. 

“But ’twas a sayin’ with the ould folks in thim 
parts, as here, ‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ and 


242 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


looked at in that light there wasn’t so much to be 
said for poor Ned, for he seemed in the height of 
his glory doin’ nothin’ at all. To be sure whin the 
pitaties were to be planted or a field to be plowed 
he cud do as much as any two, but between times 
(an’ there wasn’t crops enough in thim parts to 
keep a man long busy) ye’d find him of a fine day 
lyin’ his full length undher a three, wid his hands 
beneath his head, starin’ straight up at the clouds 
for an hour at a stretch. An’ he’d always have 
some quare tale to tell of himself. 

“ ‘I’ve been watchin’ me sheep goin’ home, little 
Molly/ he said, wavin’ his hand up at the woolly 
cloud one day whin I stole up to coax him to make 
me one of the little whistles he had the knack of 
cuttin’ out of a willow twig—he was mighty good- 
natured at doin’ a kind turn, whether ’twas con- 
thrivin’ amusement for the childher, or mendin’ a 
neighbor’s fence, or settin’ out pitaties for a lone 
widdy, or thrampin’ miles to fetch the priest to 
some poor, dyin’ crathur. ’Tis odd he hadn’t a 
better name in the parish, seein’ he was such a 
handy, well-manin’ crathur, but folks were always 
comparin’ him wid his brother Andy, who was 
busy late and early and had been like a father to 
the whole family since ould Nolan died. Not a 


MAUD REGAN 


243 


parent in the parish but was crazy to get Andy as 
a match for his daughter, well-knowin’ that ‘a 
good son makes a good husband/ but contrariwise, 
’twas on handsome Ned the girls’ hearts were set. 

“ ‘Marry that ould curmudgeon ?’ I heard Liz¬ 
zie Casey say with a toss of her shinin’ curls. ‘The 
looks of him is enough to tu-rrn the mornin’ black. 
’Tis me belief he was born ould, and thim that likes 
that sort, are kindly welcome.’ 

“She was a terrible girl for bewitchin’ the boys, 
but folks thought if she cared for any one ’twas for 
Ned Malone, and he seemed to favor her quite a 
bit, too, in his laughin’ way. For the matther of 
that, there was no countin’ on aither of thim, no 
more than there’s tellin’ where the next wind’ll 
sind a puff of thistle-down. 

“Well, since she made it clear to all that Andy 
was not to her likin’, people began to fancy it might 
be a match between him an’ Nora Molloy. She was 
a swate, quiet little crathur, wid great innocent 
gray eyes that looked right through you in a quiet 
wonderin’ sort of way. We used all of us run to 
her wid our troubles—light enough they were in 
thim times, an’ aisily consowled; may God be wid 
the good ould days ! 

“Perhaps ’twas for that raison she was the first 


244 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


to hear how Ned Malone had a notion of quittin’ 
us. 

“ ‘ ’Tis restless I am, Nora, kickin’ me heels in 
idleness, wid the breadth of the world before me. 
Andy’ll aisily be able to manage whatever crops 
there’ll be in our bits of fields, an’ I can airn gran’ 
wages over in England wid the harvesters that are 
goin’ from the next parish.’ 

“An’ Nora says, quite calm an’ airnest, ‘I think 
you’re in the right, Ned, to show folks there’s more 
to you than singin’ an’ dancin’, an’ spinnin’ ro¬ 
mances for the childher, an’ doin’ neighborly turns 
that no one seems to thank you for, an’ so my ad¬ 
vice to you is go.’ 

“ ‘Ye say it mighty cool,’ said Ned, sorrowful- 
like; ‘I’m thinkin’ I won’t be missed much—not 
that I’ve done much to deserve it.’ 

“At that Nora said, ‘Hush,’ in a quare, strangled 
sort of voice, an’ looked so pretty an’ disthressed 
there’s no tellin’ what might have happened if she 
hadn’t gathered herself together an’ answered, as 
saucy as ye plaise: 

“ ‘Never say that, Ned. Sure Lizzie Casey has a 
tinder heart.’ 

“ ‘Bedad, I’m not so sure she has one at all,’ said 
Ned, runnin’ his hand through his curls; ‘there’s 


MAUD REGAN 


245 


no tellin’ wid some girls. But you’ve been a good 
friend to me, Nora, whiniver I needed a kind word, 
an’—an’—I hope ye won’t forget me.’ 

“Wid that he turned quickly and shot through 
the door, and she only saw him once more before he 
left, and that was cowld comfort to her, for he was 
walkin’ wid Lizzie Casey and she rowlin’ her brown 
eyes at him an’ tossin’ her shinin’ curls in a way 
’twasn’t in the heart of man to resist. An’ though 
his brother Andy was sittin’ in the doorway wid her 
at the time ’twas no consolation to Nora for the 
quick stab that wint through her at the sight of 
thim. 

“Well, me brave Ned tied his sickle around his 
neck and traipesed off wid himself, an’ it seemed no 
time at all till a letther came for his mother wid 
two pounds in it, an’ people began to take a betther 
view av Ned, an’ to say there was no tellin’ what 
he’d come to if he only took care of himself. 

“So by the time the letther came (an’ more 
money in that, too, mind you) sayin’ that he was 
cornin’ home on the next boat, people were sayin’ 
he’d be as good a man as Andy now he’d steadied 
down a bit, an’ that Lizzie Casey was a lucky girl, 
for ivery wan thought ’twas as good as settled be¬ 
tween thim, what wid her knowin’ looks whiniver 


246 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


his name was mintioned, an’ the airs she was givin 7 
herself. 

“But that week passed an 7 the nixt, an 7 no news 
of poor Ned, nor a scrape of the pen to say what 
had become of him, till people began to say some 
misfortune had overtaken him. Sure enough, one 
black day came the news that the boat he had 
named as the wan he mint to take passage on had 
gone down with all on board. 

“I was only a bit of a child at the time, but I 
remimber well the talk it made—his perishin 7 in 
that lonesome sort of way instead of dyin 7 quiet an 7 
aisy in his bed an 7 bein’ waked by the neighbors 
like a Christian. 

“I used often to cry for him myself, sittin 7 un- 
dher the big three where I used to see him lyin’ of 
a fine summer’s day an’ howldin’ the little whistle 
he had made for me as if ’twas goold an 7 diamonds. 

“But if I shed tears, ’twas more than Lizzie Ca¬ 
sey ever did, for ’twas no time at all till she was at 
her owld thricks, flashin 7 her eyes at the boys as if 
she’d quite forgotten poor Ned Malone. ’Twas 
only the end of October whin she gathered the 
young folk in for some thricks wid pitaty parin’s, 
an’ starin’ in the glass in a dark room, an’ walkin’ 
around the house backward to see who they’d marry, 


MAUD REGAN 


247 


an’ whin they’d do it—an’ a fine ratin’ his river- 
ence gave thim whin these haythen canthrips came 
to his ears. 

“It was on Hallowe’en—this very night of all 
nights, whin in the airly gloaming about six miles 
up the road, a man from the next parish caught 
sight of a figure glidin’ along in the shadow of the 
leafless hedgerows. 

“ ‘An’ who may you be ?’ says he, quite sharp- 
like, for there was something quare an’ onnatural 
in the look of it. 

“ ‘They used to call me Ned Malone,’ came the 
answer, quiet an’ civil.” 

“The Lord preserve us!” said Mrs. Connor in 
awe-stricken accents, while a common impulse drew 
us all cosily close within the circle of the candle’s 
pale illumination. 

“ ‘Ned Malone that was dhrowned six weeks 
back ?’ 

“ ‘Was he so?’ said the figure in tones fit to raise 
the hair on your head, and with that he trudged on 
his way, his chin sunk on his chest; an’ I give you 
me word that man he had spoken to never took 
breath till he took it safe indoors to tell the story 
to his wife. 

“‘Sure as I live he’s glidin’ homeward this 


248 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


minit, an* you can’t hear a footfall/ said he all of 
a trimble. 

“But if he’d listened, he’d maybe have heard a 
chuckle, for-” 

“Glory be!” ejaculated Mary Nolan, gravely 
scandalized at such an unorthodox proceeding on 
the part of the ghostly visitant. 

“Sure he wasn’t dhrowned at all,” said Honor, 
in relieved accents. 

“He was not, but ’twas not for you to take the 
words out of my mouth,” said the irate narrator, 
bending upon her child a glance of grave rebuke; 
‘Tie was not, for at the last moment he got the 
chanst of another week’s work, an’ though it seems 
he wrote to tell of it, sartin sure the letter was never 
heard of from that day to this.” 

The tension of the last few seconds sensibly re¬ 
laxed as we drew long breaths, half of relief, half 
of disappointment. 

“Faith, then, I’m glad to hear it, wid that lone¬ 
some bit of road before me,” said Mary Nolan 
earnestly. 

“But sure, none of them knew that where he 
lived,” said Mrs. Flynn, delicately suggesting to 
Mrs. Murtagh that her tale was yet incomplete. 
“It must have given them the quare turn intirely 



MAUD REGAN 


249 


to have him walk in on thim widout a word of 
warnin’ an’ they thinkin’ him dhrowned fathoms 
deep.” 

“Well, I’ll tell you how ’twas,” said Mrs. Mur- 
tagh, speedily resuming her wonted geniality. “Be¬ 
in’ a comical sort of lad, the fun of the thing was 
uppermost in his mind at first. ‘Bedad, if I ain’t 
the lively corpse,’ thought he, greatly diverted; but 
as night thickened and the wind grew cold, an’ 
white mists went creepin’ over the fields an’ the 
dead leaves rustled under foot, his spirits sank, an’ 
he felt so lonesome an’ dejected that by the time he 
came to his home he’d almost persuaded himself 
he was a ghost. What wid the mist dingin’ to his 
clothes he couldn’t well have been wetter if he’d 
newly risen from the depths of the say. 

“So instead of goin’ straight in upon his mother, 
an’ Andy, an’ his little sisters, the fancy took him 
to have a look at thim first through the windy, and 
listen a minute to the good words they’d be spakin’ 
of him now he was dead an’ gone. Two or three of 
the neighbors were widin, an’ he caught some words 
which greatly incensed him. 

“ ‘Well, woman dear, there’s nothin’ so bad but 
what it might be worse—now, if ’twas Andy ye’d 
lost, ye’d have been rale desolit.’ 


250 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


‘Ay would 1/ she agreed sadly, ‘but he had a 
way wid him, too, had poor Ned; he was rale kind 
and considerit in little matthers Andy ud niver 
think of, but ’tis a bad business mournin’ for thim 
that are safe in glory!’ 

“Now ye’d have thought Ned would have been 
set up intirely to hear the grand opinion his mother 
had of him, but instead of that he was mighty dis¬ 
posed. 

“ ‘How sure she is of it, bedad, an’ how quiet an’ 
aisy she takes it, whin be rights she should be on 
her two knees prayin’ for me poor sowl, knowin’ 
(none better) the outrageous villain I used to be. 
Quare company the likes o’ me ud be for saints an’ 
angels.’ 

“Wid that he thought betther of goin’ in on 
thim at wanst, and took a notion to walk down the 
road a bit an’ see how poor Lizzie Casey was takin’ 
his loss, for she’d sint him off wid such soft 
speeches, he feared she’d be nothin’ short of heart¬ 
broken. 

“But whin he came near the Casey’s cabin he 
heard such a lot of laughin’ an’ caperin’ as was 
niver known before or since, an’ sorra the sad 
look was on any face he saw through that bit of a 
windy. 


MAUD REGAN 


251 


“ ‘See which of us you're to make happy, Liz/ 
says Tom Flynn, as she peeped into the old cracked 
lookin’-glass all smiles and dimples, just as though 
there’d never been such a person in the world as 
Ned Malone. 

“ ‘The heartless crathur/ said Ned, shakin’ his 
head sorrowful-like. ‘And me lyin’ in me cowld 
wet grave! ’Twould serve ye right if the voice of 
Ned Malone was to tell the happy man he’d have no 
great thing in ye.’ 

“By this time the poor fellow was feelin’ like a 
ghost intirely, seein’ how soon his place in the 
world was filled up, but said to himself: ‘I’ll just 
step on an’ see what’s up wid little Nora Mulloy. 
She’s about the only wan that isn’t here, so per¬ 
haps she’s dead, too, the crathur,’ and wid that his 
heart wint down into his brogues. 

“He was greatly out of consate wid himself by 
this time, for ’tisn’t every wan has the chanst to see 
how his death is taken, or,” said Mrs. Murtagh, 
bending an admonishing glance upon Honor, “we’d 
lead better lives an’ take less stock in the soft 
speeches people make us. 

“Well, ’twas only a stone’s throw to the Mulloys’, 
an’ though the blind was only half-drawn and he 
had to stand on tippy-toes an’ crane his neck till it 


252 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


ached, he thought what he saw there the plisintest 
sight he’d beheld since he set on his thravels. 

“For little Nora was standin’ in the middle of 
the room, swater than ever, though she looked pale 
an’ sad, wid the gray eyes of her as big as saucers 
an’ her beads twisted about her little hands, lookin’ 
far more like a ghost than the wan that watched 
her unbeknownst. 

“‘Sure, mother dear,’ she was sayin’, in that 
purty slow way she had, ‘I’d only be a damper on 
them all if I wint—an’ no divarsion would it be 
for me, remimberin’ how poor Ned used to be the 
life of us all, an’ listenin’ every minit for his laugh. 
An’ there’s no use talkin’ to me of Andy whin me 
heart’s another’s—sure, there’s no harm tellin’ it 
now whin he’s lyin’ in the depths o’ the say, an 
perhaps ’twas me own light words sint him there. 
No, I’ll be happier here for prayin’ for him.’ 

“Wid that Ned could stand it no longer. ‘That’s 
me fine little Nora all over,’ said he to himself; ‘an’ 
the good heart of the crathur, an’ the sinse of her, 
too, to be remimberin’ the prayers!’ 

“So he pushed open the door (and a mercy it 
wasn’t the death of Mrs. Mulloy to see him so pale 
and dhrippin’ wid the mist!). She gave wan wild 
shriek an’ clapped her two hands over her eyes, 


MAUD REGAN 


253 


which was all for the best, as it happened, for it 
gave Ned the chanst of takin’ Nora in his two 
arms—just be way of showin’ he was flesh an’ 
blood,” said Mrs. Murtagh, remembering Honor, 
and her own duties in the matter of edification. 

“An’ so they were married?” hazarded Mary 
Nolan. 

“What else after such goin’s on as that?” re¬ 
joined Mrs. Flynn, gravely scandalized. 

“ ’Deed they were, in the ind,” admitted the nar¬ 
rator, somewhat piqued at this second forestalling 
of her dramatic climax. 

“I question was he such a great match after all,” 
said Mrs. Lynch, disparagingly. 

“Well, thin, you’re wrong there,” rejoined Mrs. 
Murtagh, hastening to the defense of her hero— 
“a steadier fellow niver lived from that day on. 
The only dhrawbac-k was that he took her to live in 
England, where he had the offer of a grand situa¬ 
tion. I had married meself an’ left those parts be¬ 
fore they came back to visit, but I was told Nora 
wore a silk dress to chapel on Sundays, and brought 
iligant gifts to all belongin’ to thim.” 

“An what became of Lizzie Casey ?” asked 
Honor, on whom the “rowlin’ eyes” and “shinin’ 
curls” had made a deep impression, not to be ef- 


254 


THE GHOST OF NED MALONE 


faced by a contemplation of Nora’s more solid 
virtues. 

“She lived an’ died an ould maid, for whin she 
thried her blarneyin’s on Andy, ’twas no manner 
of use, for he knew some of the purty names she 
used to call him.” 

Mrs. Murtagh, who throughout her recital had 
been torn between the desire of pointing a moral 
for the benefit of Honor, and adorning a tale for 
the delectation of her elders, was quick to seize this. 

“She niver got any wan at all,” she concluded 
with portentous gravity, “an’ ’tis always the way 
wid thim that has too many sthrings to their bows.” 

Honor meekly hid an abashed but still gorgeous 
head beneath the dingy eclipse of a frayed shawl in 
obedience to Mrs. Murtagh’s: 

“Well, we must be thrampin’ off wid ourselves, 
for the young lady here has an early start of it.” 

In a moment I was the center of a kindly babel 
of blessings and good-bys. Then the door opened 
on a quieter night, dominated by the splendid 
silver moon, newly risen above the cliff’s black 
shoulder, and on the faint ribbon of road adown 
which these friends of a summer must journey out 
of my life—a road haunted, we may hope, by no 
grimmer specter than the ghost of Ned Malone. 

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